Again and again I find it quite remarkable, the amount of strength some people can muster!
Story:
This is by Marina Cantacuzino, founder of The Forgiveness Project and "The F Word exhibition: stories in words and pictures of people who have survived tragedy and lived through atrocity but found it in themselves to reconcile or forgive".
British-born Jon James who was held hostage in 1997 by Chechnyan rebels with his girlfriend Camilla Carr told me he survived only because he'd learnt from practising martial arts that "to overcome your opponent you should meet hardness with softness".
Their ordeal lasted 14 months, during which Camilla was repeatedly raped by one of her captors - and yet they have emerged remarkably intact.
For them forgiveness has come to mean seeking to understand the enemy.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu met Camilla in January 2004 he was stuck by her open-hearted sincerity and afterwards mentioned her in many lectures and press interviews that he gave.
For Desmond Tutu forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done to you, "it means taking what has happened seriously and not minimising it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence."
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment