"May God die in all of us one day".
(My blog post from Day 4 of Atheism for Lent 2022)
Three years to this date, March 5, 2022 and four days into my first experience with Atheism for Lent, we were introduced to Elie Wiesel. Today, Ash Wednesday, begins Atheism for Lent 2025 and Elie Wiesel is the reflection for today.
As soon as I saw his name, I went to my blog post first and discovered it was exactly three years ago today that I was faced with this story. I went into detail in my blog post as to the significance that this story played for me. This morning, I didn't want to listen to music or read the story again. It was still fresh in my mind, almost as if I could imagine being there with Elie.
Maybe going there again serves a purpose in this journey and maybe there was a good reason that Pete came out of the gate with this story. This time, he didn't say he would ease us into this journey. At least I didn't hear him say that.
I still don't know if I have it in me to listen to music and let my mind and body experience that story again. So I did something different this morning. I sent an email to Germany.
I have recently reconnected with my second cousins who both live in Germany. They are the granddaughters of my great uncle, whose story I shared in my blog post . I asked them to share some stories of their Opa with me. I wasn't looking for a history lesson. I already have that. I was looking for their stories with their Opa. I want to find the humanity in my great uncle. I don't want his past to define him without who he was to his family. Their stories matter. We are all more than just the sum of the stupid stuff we did or were are a part of. I have to believe that. I have to believe that I can find a common humanity in others, no matter what they've done. That is where things like compassion, forgiveness and love can be found.
I remember reading a story about Corrie Ten Boom. It was after her own internment in a concentration camp that she found herself in the presence of one of the soldiers that was at that very camp. That soldier had shown up at a Christian gathering that Corrie was speaking at. I was moved by her response of forgiveness and how she reached out and shook his hand. I read that story as a child in a Christian comic book about "The Hiding Place". I had hoped it was genuine and not just a gracious response because she felt she had to as a Christian author and speaker. Maybe she found his humanity and was able to move beyond the history.
This morning I got a picture of the sunrise. It looks eerie peeking through the trees like it would have peeked through the fences and barbed wire of the concentration camps in Poland and Germany during WW2. It is the same sun that that prisoners like Elie Wiesel and Corrie Ten Boom saw. It's like this morning, the sun was trying to tell me something...
"I am still beautiful and can still give you light, even though I have to shine through the obstacles of your life."
No comments:
Post a Comment