Would You Be A Terrorist?

In an Alabaman courthouse in the Sixties, a white supremacist stood trial for his participation in the lynching of a black man. In the weeks following the killing, he emotionally sobered up and came to deeply regret it. Detailing his crime on the witness stand, the man broke down. Seeing the boy's mother in the audience, he pleaded to her for the seemingly impossible:
to forgive him.

"Son," she serenely replied, "I already have."

Literally, there was not a dry eye in the house.
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Would you be a terrorist if:

• you watched your children starve to death day by day
• your home was bombed - and you still owed the mortgage
• each day was to be nothing more than a search for food
• your son was drafted into the army - at 12
• your teenage daughter was sold as a prostitute
• you had NO SAY in your life

Poverty like a plague has contaminated more of the world than not. And as long as we place money over the human condition, it will only grow. The conditions I listed above are just a FEW of the horrors shared by our fellow man. Judge them if you will but who would you rather have as your neighbor: the well fed man or the man with no food? A man with a hungry neighbor never sleeps well at night; he always has to be on guard.

We think our war machine and money and - laughably - fences will allow us to sleep well. Man's folly never ends. One thing I've learned from studying history: we never learn from history. I started this posting with a story of forgiveness and there will be those who mock that idea because rage is oh so hip. But if someone were to ask me: why forgive? I would say because Jesus forgave you - and look what we did to him.