Lyndon Harris and his Path to Forgiveness

I found an interesting and inspiring article over at The Christian Science Monitor‘s site detailing Reverend Lyndon Harris’ struggles with forgiveness in the wake of 9/11.

Finally, Harris says, he could hear these words attributed to Nelson Mandela: “Not to forgive is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for your enemies to die.” Harris admits he drank deeply of that poison – mostly, he says, “because it tasted so good.”

Rev. Harris met Alexandra Asseily who had:

begun a movement to plant a Garden of Forgiveness in her beloved Lebanon after its civil war, which claimed more than 300,000 lives. The greatest gift to one’s children, Ms. Asseily teaches, is to become a better ancestor. And that, she says, is done through forgiveness.

I’ll save the rest of the story for the article, but I will say that since then Reverend Harris has become involved in a movement to plant a Garden of Forgiveness in New York City and even more abroad (in Rwanda, for instance).

In researching this blog entry I found a film called The Power of Forgiveness, which features Ms. Asseily and others working for forgiveness in the world.  I’m sorry to say I missed it’s showing on PBS in 2008.  Hopefully I’ll get to see it soon.  ^_^  In the meantime there are some interesting resources on the film’s site, including outreach tools and forgiveness resources.