Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 1-154

FORGIVE - AND BE FORGIVEN!

[It has to be said that this subject was scheduled some time ago to appear this week - God knew when it would be topical!)

From 'Sunrise Sunset' (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher's book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Matthew 6:12.

Gilbert and Sullivan could put happy words to happy music, and created some of the loveliest light operas - Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado - but apparently they couldn't get along. They had bitter fights about trivial things - like the price of a carpet. This matter was taken to court, and they never spoke to each other again.

So when Sullivan wrote the music for a new production, he would mail it to Gilbert; he in turn wrote the words, and mailed them back to Sullivan. Once when they had to take a curtain-call together they stood on opposite sides of the stage and bowed in different directions! Gilbert and Sullivan didn't have the wisdom or maturity to get rid of resentment.

During the Civil War, some of Abraham Lincoln's friends were denouncing his bitter enemies. Lincoln said, 'You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. Perhaps I have too little of it; but I never thought it paid. You don't have to spend half your life in quarrels... I don't want to remember the past against others.'

Thomas Fuller wrote in 1732: 'The worst of people are those who will not forgive.'

To forgive and be forgiven is an ecstasy which arouses the envy of the angels. May I be willing, Lord, to experience both. Amen.

Shalom! Rowland Croucher >