GLOBAL VILLAGER 18 – FORGIVENESS
Man aged 56 from Wuhan, Henan, China. Christian, literate, speaks Mandarin
A man sitting next to a coal-fired stove cradles his head in his hands. On a small wooden table nearby lies an English/Chinese Bible with a worn black cover. He remembers the underground church meeting where he prayed for a Christian Chinese constitution and he remembers the years he spent in a labour camp atoning for this, his ‘mind problem’. When he thinks about those lost years, he seethes with internal anger, but it never erupts, boiling incessantly below the surface. Suddenly someone hammers on the door which he has locked deliberately, and he hears his sister sobbing at the other side. She tells him that her daughter has been run over and injured by a Hui Muslim driver. The man immediately jumps up to let her in and, as he listens, his anger burns stronger and stronger until it finally explodes. He runs through the streets in the Muslim quarter, screaming and inciting revenge. Others join him and a wave of religious and ethnic riots escalate in the huge sprawling grey city of Wuhan.
As the man wanders back home half deranged though the back alleys of Wuhan, he sees an elderly woman standing in a doorway. She is crying so bitterly that he stops, confused. His Christian heart tells him that he should feel compassion, but she is obviously a Muslim woman. Finally, after a moment which seems like eternity, his heart prevails and he decides to ask if he can help. She is grateful for his concerned enquiry and tells him about her son who has injured a Catholic girl. She implores him to help her find the girl’s parents so that she can explain that it was not a deliberate act of racism, but an accident. The man is astonished and takes the woman into his arms to comfort her. He knows exactly where to take her – to his sister – and in a sudden flash of deep understanding, he recognizes that nothing in his life has ever happened by chance. This incredible incident leads him to a completely new understanding of everything he has ever experienced. His exclusion of others had led to his own exclusion in prison. The religious riots presently surrounding him are a reflection of his own religious intolerance. Through this new contact with several Muslim families, he comes to see that his hatred was an illusion based on ignorance. He sees his niece's serious injury as the last and most painful ‘wake-up call’ in a long series of ‘wake-up calls’ which he has failed to take seriously. Now he greets everyone with a forgiving and loving heart, especially those who hurt him most, as he recognizes that they were the pivotal force behind his joyful transformation.
Questions:
Which part of yourself have you imprisoned, extinguished or kept ‘underground’?
What if there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’? When did you last express your anger?
Given that hatred is based on ignorance, what prevents you from forgiving?
Which painful loss are you focusing on, thus attracting more negativity?
What are your ‘lost years’?
Supposing you view them as a necessary preamble to a transformation which is on your soul agenda?
Which conviction is so strong and inflexible that it requires a major accident or calamity to wake you up and put you on a different course?
What was your last ‘wakeup call’, and did you take it seriously?
Are you aware that pain is a precursor of potential joyful transformation in yourself?
What would change in the world if all religions were regarded as valid?
Supposing everyone realised that in pardoning, we are pardoned, and that in pardoning ourselves, we can enter a new period of vitality?
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This text is part of the UNITY TAROT which is available to everyone:
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Part 2: http://abundanthope.net/pages/rosie-one/Unity-Tarot-part-II.shtml
The Tarot is part of the SPIRITUAL REVOLUTION PROJECT:
http://www.rosie-jackson.de/pages/spiritual_revolution_e_01.html
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