living life in shades of grey

art by mark rothko (1903-1970)

last night on the bbc world news they had another installation of a series called, "heart and soul." the subject of last night's piece was forgiveness. are there times when we cannot or should not forgive? what if the those who have wronged show no remorse? what if those who have wronged are dead and cannot express remorse?

the piece remembered the 52 people who were killed by a terrorist bombing in england in 2005. 2 mothers were interviewed who had lost children in the bombing. one was a nigerian woman, a devout catholic who lost her son and the other an anglican priest who lost her daughter.

both were impacted by the tragedy and their story of grief has led to different conclusions.

the nigerian mother anguished with a great deal of different emotions but she felt that in order to continue to work out her own salvation journey she had to follow the words of the LORD's prayer in forgiving those who had trespassed against her and learning to forgive the bombers. to let them go to the hands of GOD and let Him judge so that she could move forward and forgive them for what they did.

the anglican priest also anguished with a great deal of different emotions and felt that forgiving those who had done such a wicked and dark thing could never be forgiven by her. to forgive them would be to dishonor the death of her daughter. she felt that there were some acts that could never be humanly forgiven. she harbors no bitterness and hatred however she cannot forgive.

sometimes we're told that things are very black and white. and maybe sometimes they are...or are they? monday nights, i've been watching the TV show lost on DVD and the first season does a really good job of painting the back story of their characters. some characters you'd easily write-off if you didn't know their story. like a con-man or a convict.

i'm not sure the point is about determining what is black and what is white. who's in and who's out. maybe that isn't the moral of the story. maybe there is, what we we've been calling at cross, a third option.

whatever that is i'm still figuring it out. but i'll meet you in the grey.