As We Forgive: Week 3--Pages 94 - 131

Chantel’s story starts with a celebration. Wearing a new white dress her father had given her for her Confirmation and First Communion, she whirls on the hillside with her father watching her dance. The dress and her world spin around her and joy in the moment and beauty of the day take her breath away. To make her day completely special, John, a Hutu neighbor, was hosting a party in her honor. It was unthinkable that John--a man her father drank beers with--would one day brutally kill the man he stood with that day while they both enjoyed a little girl’s joy spilling over into dance.

This story is so sad—I struggle to understand how neighbors can enjoy meals together and then kill each other. It is also amazing to me how thorough the brainwashing was that somehow made it OK. John felt great guilt at killing Chantel’s father, and hid so he’d never be forced to kill someone else. But it wasn’t till the preachers began to come to the prison that John understood the depth of the evil he had done(page111). Crying out to God for forgiveness, he wondered if Chantell would ever be able to forgive him.

These pages tell the story of transformation—change that took these very real people into a hell we can’t imagine, and then brought them out again. They also tell the story of Pascal—a man God called to the mission of forgiveness and reconciliation. It is amazing what God was able to do through this faithful and obedient man. We’ve seen people like him in the preceding pages and more will come later in the book.

But, what I want to stress right now is that God used a very humble man to do incredible things for Him; however, the path was extremely hard. Who in their right mind would have accepted this assignment, moved their family to such a troubled nation, and walked into prisons and talked to people who had skinned their neighbors, raped their friends, brutally murdered children. Pascal. Amazing.

Can you identify in some way with Pascal?

Is God asking you to do something hard right now? Or, has He in the past?

Do you see how He is using you in a very ugly setting?

Let’s tell those stories this week as we post. Not to brag, or to be proud—but to rejoice that God invites us to partner with Him in His redemption/transforming work in this world.

As We Forgive: Week 2--Page 60-93

I don’t like scary movies or adventurous rides at the fair. My life holds plenty of drama and I don’t need anything else to force me to the edge of my chair or to put fear in my stomach. I don’t like being afraid—it is one of my besetting sins—one I often confess. With God’s help, I’m being transformed into someone more courageous—someone who is learning boldness. Still, I don’t know if I could watch a movie of these pages, let alone live them or relive them over and over again. I can’t imagine being Joy—living and reliving her life over and over again…

Joy was a little girl when violence broke out and neighbors killed her father and then hunted for her, her sisters and her mother. In that violence, many things broke for each of them, including the neighbors. Joy’s world fell apart—even when she was “safe,” she wasn’t. Her memories were tearing her apart and teaching her hatred, while her orphanage’s lack of food, kindness and its culture of meanness continued to reinforce her conclusions about life, adults, safety, and family.

I have to believe God never left this little girl’s world. The machete and the violence didn’t trample out His church or His people or His Holy Spirit’s power to move people into situations of reconciliation that they could not have imagined. As we read and then comment this week, please tell us where you saw God in Joy’s life—in the lives of the other people who populate her story.

Do you have experiences in your history that mirror what you see in Joy’s life?

What do you think of the steps to forgiveness that are presented in the interlude?

Do you have your own healing path of forgiveness?

Take a look at the questions on page 93. Would you like to answer any of them for us? Your thoughts are important to our discussion—please comment, OK?

As We Forgive: Week One--Pages 9-59

As We Forgive by Catherine Claire Larson

Welcome to the WOTH Book Club Blog. I’m so glad you are reading As We Forgive with us. I hope that each one who reads with us will take time to invest in this group by commenting each week. We will be a better book club because of the insights and lessons you share. May I please urge you to comment? The comments that were made during our last read really encouraged me and taught me to see things I would have missed on my own. Plus, I loved that we could pray for each other as we talked about different topics the book brought up. So, again—please share yourself with this book club. We’ll be better because of you! (If you have any trouble commenting, please email Cindy at: editor@womenoftheharvest.com)

This isn’t a light read—it isn’t a book you want to lull you to sleep at night. If you read it right before bed, your dreams may be filled with images too horrible to imagine as you read the words in black and white. This is an important read, though. It shows us the horror that people just like you and me faced when neighbors and friends became fearful enemies and family members were killed with violence we really can’t fathom. What makes this book important for us to read, though, are the redemption stories of forgiveness, mercy and grace that transform those who suffered from this violence—both those who held the machetes and those who saw their lives destroyed from that sharp blade’s destruction.

I first read this book over a year ago and could hardly put it down as the stories captured my heart with their incredible sadness and the amazing hope they offered. Now, reading it for the second time, I’m compelled to read it with more respect—the first rush read has been replaced with a solemn pace—and I have to take breaks away from the intense emotions these pages bring to my heart.

As I read, I’m pondering forgiveness in a whole new light—a light that shines where you would think it could never, ever in a million years shine. It shines from the mother, widow, dad, and son. It shines from the ones forgiven—and the ones facilitating the process. I’m reading this book in early June, when the oil spill has passed people’s patience limit and hateful words are spewing thicker than the oil is coating the marshlands. I’m reading while people are irate about what just happened in Gaza with the relief flotilla that was stopped by Israel. N Korea is making threats of war, the war on terror is still droning on producing more people who will have reasons to hate. Forgiveness in this world seems like a lost ideal. But, the people of Rwanda offer hope that from the darkest of evil, relationships can be reconciled through forgiveness, mercy and grace.

This book will teach us about forgiveness. And, my hope is that we’ll learn how to offer, practice, and receive it in new, deeper ways. I really can’t say, “Happy reading.” This just isn’t that kind of book. But, I do welcome you to this study. I believe our lives will be forever changed if we’re willing to learn new lessons in forgiveness from people who had so much to forgive—so much to be forgiven.

For our first week, please read pages 9-59. You’ll find questions for reflection on page 59 and you may want to comment on one or more of them. Or, you may have your own response to this chapter. I look forward to reading your thoughts!

Next Book Club Starts August 16

Here's what one Book Club reader had to say about participating with Linda and reading Gilead:

"This book has been so rich. I'm glad that we have some time before the next book because I am still processing Gilead, and will be doing so in the next several weeks! Thank you again, Linda. This isn't a book that I would have thought to read (I hadn't even heard of it!), but am so happy to have read it!"

The next thought-provoking and timely book discussion starts on August 16.

Don't miss it!!! Plenty of time to order from Inklings Bookshop @ 30% off...see sidebar for details.

Next Book: As We Forgive, Catherine Claire Larson.

Based on personal interviews and thorough research, As We Forgive returns to the boundary lines of genocide’s wounds and traces the route of reconciliation in the lives of Rwandans—victims, widows, orphans, and perpetrators—whose past and future intersect. We find in these stories how suffering, memory, and identity set up roadblocks to forgiveness, while mediation, truth-telling, restitution, and interdependence create bridges to healing. The result is a narrative that breathes with humanity and is as haunting as it is hopeful.

Gilead: Week 6 - pages 191 to the end

This section of our reading takes us to the end of the first chapter of this book and through to end of the 2nd, which is also the last chapter. And while we read, the author revisits all of his relationships—from his love of Gilead, his complicated relationships with his grandfather, father, and brother, to his oldest and dearest friend and that friend’s son, his first and second wives, his first and second children. We see life celebrated, pondered and understood in new ways. As we read, John wrestles with himself, and looks again at doctrine, belief, loyalty, love and family. He sees himself as honestly as he can, and he uses his writings as a mirror to capture the truth and as a picture to frame that truth.

As I neared the end of the book, I felt sadness to say good-bye to John, this pastor, husband, father, friend, son and grandson—gentleman. He has taught me many lessons and some came in the closing pages.

“If you want to inform yourselves as to the nature of hell, don’t hold your hand in a candle flame, just ponder the meanest, most desolate place in your soul.”

“Let’s just be honest with each other for five minutes.”

“But dishonesty is dishonesty, a humiliating thing to be caught at.”

“And what purpose is a prophet except to find meaning in trouble?"

“There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.”

I loved the redemption of the hand on the boy’s brow, the honesty of imperfect relationships and broken lives lived with hope and yearned for with love. I find myself grieving for a son who will have to get to know his father through his father’s writings, and thankful that his father wrote so honestly, so well, turning phrases into word pictures to introduce his son to himself, to his family history, to the mysteries of faith and to God.

This is our last week to post our thoughts about Gilead. How would you sum up the impact of this book on you? What lessons do you take away from a life so honestly written about? Thanks for reading with me. Thanks for posting. I have enjoyed your companionship while reading this very special book.

[Editor's note: I had the privilege of meeting with Linda, in person, at the WOTH Furlough Retreat four days ago. What a heart she has for you all! We set the date for the next Book Club to start on August 16 with the book, As We Forgive. (See sidebar.)]

Gilead: Week 5 - Pages 141-190

Doctrine and theology take center stage in this longer section, but the real content is relationships—the difficult ones that make us less than we want to be. Those messy relationships are the ones where we respond with less love, forgiveness, grace, mercy and graciousness then we expect. Sometimes, when I’ve been in those awkward places, the walls of my heart have gone up without a conscious thought on my part, and hardness and coldness have crept in where hurt and disappointment were still setting the mood.

In this section, we learn why John doesn’t like Jack and why he struggles to forgive him—to trust him. Page 164: “Or say at least that harm to me was probably never a primary object in any of the things he got up to. That one man should lose his child and the next man should just squander his fatherhood as if it were nothing—well, that does not mean the second man has transgressed against the first. I don’t forgive him. I wouldn’t know where to begin.” Now we know why the relationship isn’t working—and we can see the depth of the pain goes incredibly deep. Recognizing his heart’s turmoil, John says without much hope (on page 179), “I do hope to die with a quiet heart. I know that may not be realistic.”

Relationships gone awry do not lend us peace. Our hearts mourn, wrestle, relive, and seek solutions for the differences, the difficulties, the problems our broken relationships present. Like John, we may wrestle and even believe the worst (bottom of page 188). When John wrestles, he finds that what he assumed to be true wasn’t—and he is glad he faced his wretchedness and found that his conclusions weren’t based on reality. “Because now I realize it isn’t true. And that is a great relief to me.”

Have you ever wrestled with ugliness and found buried treasure—truth that surprised you?

Let’s share our stores of God’s redemptive, transformative power in our lives when we post this week. I’m excited to read what you have to share. And—BTW—didn’t you just love his thoughts on persuasion, doctrine, theology? You may not agree with all he said, but, his points are very well made. I appreciate his candor and his authenticity. And, the wisdom in this sentence is something to rejoice in, “If the Lord chooses to make nothing of our transgressions, than they are nothing….”

Lots to ponder there...