A Perfect Storm

"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."   -Bertrand Russell-
 
"Sometimes when things seem to be going wrong, they are going right for reasons you are yet to understand."    - Alan Cohen-
 
"Love ultimately proves its reality."     - Alan Cohen -
 
"Force always breeds resistance."   - paraphrased from the Tao Te Ching -
 
The City of Dallas recently hired a new Chief of Police.  As you can imagine, being the top cop for one of our nation's largest cities is highly visible, highly political, and undoubtedly, full of pressures from both within and without.
 
Shortly after our new police chief took office, one of the most bizarre set of circumstances I've ever encountered took place in a nearby city....a "suburb" if you will.  Our police chief's son was involved in the fatal shooting of an innocent bystander and then a Lancaster police officer.  The chief's son was then gunned down by local police.  Let me make this clear for you.  The top-ranking police officer in one of our country's biggest cities had a son who killed a fellow officer, and THEN the boy was killed by other police officials. 
 
I don't care how you spin this.  My heart goes out to that chief.  I don't know what kind of father he is.  I don't know what kinds of issues he had with his son.  I don't care about anything involving his parenting.  HIS son is dead.  And he was killed by fellow police officers acting in a way they are trained to do.  To make things so much worse, his son was a murderer and a cop killer.  I can't even begin to imagine the turmoil and grief that must be crushing the very soul of that chief.  His son did the unimaginable......and now he's dead.  Try trodding through THAT emotional and political mine field. 
 
It gets worse.  On the day of the son's funeral, a Dallas Deputy Police Chief called for on-duty officers to aid in the escort of the funeral procession because he felt public safety was being jeopardized.  It was a split-second decision based on what he felt was best at the time.  When the public got wind of what happened, they called for the Deputy's head on a platter.  How dare he use on-duty cops to escort a cop killer?!  It was the final clap of thunder in a perfect storm.  But I'll get back to that.
 
Rewind two weeks to a dinner I had with my daughter.  At that dinner, I was able to pick the brain and listen to the wisdom of a teenager filled with visions of world peace.  She spoke of how she wants to grow up to write peace treaties and help the starving children of third-world countries.  She doesn't want to be in politics, but wants to share the message of peace and forgiveness.  She wants to be an ambassador of freedom and good will.  And then she said something that made me almost choke on a cheesestik.  "I know what the terrorists did was terrible and wrong", she said.  "But what would have happened if we'd just forgiven them?"
 
Now rewind almost nine years to that fateful day in September of 2001.  A terrorist attack on U.S. soil killed nearly 4,000 civilians, firefighters and police officers.   Almost immediately, President Bush launched a war on terror;  an action I supported, by the way.  Since that time, nearly 6,000 U.S. and allied troops have died in the effort to stop terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I've already addressed my new position on the war effort so I won't get into that.  But what I do want to make clear here, is that we have lost 50% more people in the war effort itself than we lost in the initial attack.  So what was initially nearly 4,000 dead, is now nearly 10,000.  And we're really nowhere closer to stopping terrorism.  You know it.  I know it.  The pentagon knows it.  Different topic for a different time.
 
So let's get back to my daughter's question of forgiveness and how it relates to our police chief and the war.  What if?  What if the citizens of Dallas could just forgive the Deputy who used on-duty personnel and accept that he did the best he could?  What if the family of the slain police officer could just forgive the chief's son for his heinous crime?  The truth is, the boy is dead.  The ONLY people that will suffer for carrying the hate are the people doing the hating.  What if, (and I know you're gonna blast me here) the U.S. had merely "forgiven" the Muslim world for the act of terrorism carried out by a few?  What if we had simply spent that trillion dollars on education or increased security within our own borders?  Would the body count be 10,000 by using THAT strategy?  I doubt it.
 
I'm trying to get to my point here, but there's more than can be condensed into one meager blog entry.  Where is our spirit of forgiveness?  Even Jesus said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."  You aren't perfect.  Neither am I.  We may not have killed a cop or bombed a hi-rise, but aren't we worthy of forgiveness?  Is it possible, just POSSIBLE, that in the big picture, forgiving the unforgivable may be what serves everyone best?  
 
The Tao Te Jing (The Way) and various others have suggested that the quickest way to build resistance is to use force.  Tell your kids they CAN'T do something and they can't wait to try it.  Build a wall along the border of Texas and people will die trying to climb it.  Take your all-powerful war weapon half way around the world and the most "unworthy" opponents will dig in and fight back until it makes you look like you're nothing.  I boxed in only one fight, but I can tell you...every time the guy hit me, I did my best to hit him back.  It's a law of nature.  Use force and resistance will come.
 
I clearly don't have the answers to all this, but I'd like to pose a challenge to anyone reading this.  Ala "Pay It Forward", I'd like you to think of one person you need to forgive, whether you think they deserve it or not.  Now forgive them.  Now ask them to do the same.  And so on and so on.  I think you'll be amazed at how much lighter you'll feel after letting go of the bitterness.  And maybe it'll catch on.  Maybe starting right here and right now we can start a chain of forgiveness, one person at a time, that will change a nation.....that will change a world.
 
To change the heart of a nation, we have to change the hearts of its people.  Let's start today with a spirit of forgiveness.