Is This It?

Some years ago, in a class at a community college, we were having a conversation about forgiveness. The students grappled with weighty questions: Is forgiveness genuinely possible? Does everyone deserve it, or just some? Are certain actions, or certain people, unforgiveable? Who, besides G-d, decides?

Tonight at sundown, Yom Kippur begins, the culmination of the Days of Awe that began ten days ago on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It is a time to make amends so that we may be 'inscribed in the Book of Life for another year'. A time of fresh beginnings. Who doesn't feel a need for that right now?

The horror of our racist legacy has spilled into the streets. A pandemic rages, and we are being bombarded with disinformation. Our current president has threatened to remain in office regardless of the outcome of the upcoming election. Some say it's a coup in slow motion, with clear comparisons to Hitler's rise in Germany as people of color replace the Jews as a primary target. Reputable journalists are warning of a fascist takeover. Through it all, the natural world continues to crumble, with no coherent response.

Astrologically, the next several weeks are a turning point for humanity, one that is simultaneously a crucible and an invitation. It seems we are in the squeeze of the cosmic birth canal as humankind is being called to awaken. I admit, I am intrigued. In our moment of reckoning, are we more agile than we realized? Is this merely my own despair grasping at straws, or is there a thread of real possibility here?

That day in the classroom, the story that had pulled us into our conversation of forgiveness was that of an unlikely colleague who had become a dear friend. He was a former fighter in Liberia who had done terrible things: he had kidnapped child soldiers, killed innocent people, and committed atrocities. And, like most of us, he himself was a child of trauma: longing to go to school, he had joined the army because new recruits were promised an education. Instead, soon after basic training, his commander had ordered him to shoot an unarmed man - a deserter who had emerged from his hiding place waving a white handkerchief. It became a familiar dilemma: kill or be killed. After pulling the trigger, he blocked the incident from his memory, and descended into mayhem and drugs.  

In the Liberian army, he went on to become a general. The CIA sent him for weapons training in Lebanon; interrogation training in Romania; anti-terrorism training in Israel. After that, he became a personal bodyguard to then-President Sam Doe. In the coup that took Doe's life (he was tortured to death on national television), my friend was thrown into jail and tortured as well. From prison he joined the rebel army. I met him in 2004, a few months after the civil war had ended. I didn't know it at the time, but he was on his way to Ivory Coast to recruit more child soldiers.

As often happens during the rainy season, all our vehicles had broken down in the mud. I caught a ride into town with others from our group, while two of our Liberian colleagues stayed behind with the car. As they waited for help to arrive, they talked about peacebuilding. The stranded general listened. Two days later, he came to our compound and told us his story. He had begun to reflect on his experiences. Now he wondered what he could possibly tell his own children about the life he had led. As he spoke, he looked up, tears streaming, and declared that he had decided to devote himself to peace. Little by little, we began working together.

In the classroom back in California, the discussion deepened, and the rings of responsibility, of cause and effect, rippled ever outward: Liberia was once an American colony settled in the 1820's by formerly enslaved people who were sent back to Africa, where they endured unspeakable hardship on the return voyage and lethal diseases once they arrived. They installed themselves as the ruling class, became missionaries, appropriated land and imposed their will on the indigenous people there. Trauma and tensions simmered for more than a century. Then, during the Cold War, the CIA stepped in, treating Liberia like a chess piece. The US artificially propped up Liberia's economy, then abruptly withdrew support when the Cold War ended, and Liberia descended into starvation and chaos. In 1989, the civil war erupted.

The students wondered aloud, Who was responsible for what? How far back did it go? What was the way to untangle the mess? We arrived at an impasse: the class was evenly divided for and against forgiveness for the former general. I didn't tell them that I struggled, too - that my heart was unpredictable, and my mind scrambled to justify what I did and did not feel, including my inexplicable friendship with the Liberian general that had upended my beliefs: I used to think that peace could be won with logic; that love precedes forgiveness; that some hatred is justified.

Then a young woman spoke up and began to trace the lineage of her own prejudice: she had grown up in Paris in an immigrant neighborhood where West African men from former French colonies. Once in a while one of them would leer at her and she wondered if they committed petty crimes. She was afraid, and ashamed to admit that she hated them. Then her expression changed, and the story continued: during World War II, her grandparents had sheltered Nazi soldiers in order to protect the family. Her grandmother had slept with some of them. Recently, after a young veteran had come to volunteer at her church, the congregation learned that he had committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The classroom went silent. Finally, someone asked: What did you do? She looked up, wide-eyed, and said, "By then we already loved him."