Regarding training wheels...

I remember my Dad teaching me to ride without training wheels.  I had a tiny red bicycle and my big Dad easily ran alongside me while I pedaled furiously - his big hands clamped on the back of the white vinyl banana seat.  Yippeee!  No training wheels!  Of course, I failed to realize Dad was holding everything up.  That is, until he let go...without my knowing... and just ran alongside me.  Faster and faster I pedaled until I realized he wasn't holding my bike anymore. 

"Keep your eyes on the road, Janie.  You're doing great!"

Craning back to see him waving at me, I promptly ran into the neighbor's parked orange pinto.  In the split second before I registered the chrome bumper coming at me - I remembered the exhilaration of flying on my own with my Dad smiling and waving encouragement.

There's nothing like blacktop to scrape away every layer of exhilaration, knee,  and elbow skin.  My Dad picked me up, cuddled me close, and later - bolted my training wheels back on - because I begged him to.

"You just let me know when you want to take them off and try again," he said.  

I was sure that would be never.  But my Dad is wise...he respected my fear, but didn't reward it.  As long as I needed trainers, I was limited to riding around the back patio.  "But..." he said, "As soon as you're ready for the open road, we'll get those things off."  After a few turns around that familiar patch, the same camellia bushes and ice plants took their toll on my boredom.  I craved the freedom of a stretch of road where an orange pinto could still take a bite of your shin and black tar gravel could chew holes in your knees - but adventure and newness were around every corner!  A few more turns around the patio and my baby sister came out and started chasing me with her tricycle... humiliation trumped fear.

"Daddy, I don't want to ride on the patio anymore."

Before I knew it, the trainers were off - and I - road tested and wiser - took to the streets again.  I lost a few more bets with the pavement.  But in the process, I learned how to dodge orange pintos, and got to feel the wind on my sun-browned forehead.  My bicycle took me far beyond the confines of the yard patio.  It was my ride to the creek where I picked blackberries and turned my teeth purple, the public swimming pool where I fell in love with the golden boy lifeguard and the high dive, the library where I read myself into mythical romances and epic adventures...all because my Dad helped me want more than my fear could ever give me.

Why do I bring this up right now?  I've been thinking about the times in my life when I've made bad decision based on fear.  I've hung onto things I should have let go of.  I've stayed when I should have gone - a career that was sucking the life from me, but I was afraid to let it go...relationships that were limiting and harmful, but they were the evil I knew...or a scary new adventure with high failure potential, where I wimped out and told myself I didn't really want to do it anyway. 

I have seen God, time and again, behave just as my Dad did.  He allows me to "putter around the patio" of my fear, and deal with the consequences and limitations of those fear-based choices...but the moment I'm ready, he takes the training wheels off and runs alongside me - waving and shouting encouragement.  Unfortunately, I often revert back to my "training wheel" choices - sometimes multiple times.  But I have NEVER experienced disgust or hatred from my Father...just the limitations my choices bring.  And when I'm ready again...we go like it's the first time...and I feel His warmth like a sunshine smile on my summer brown skin.

Extreme Revenge & Forgiveness

So - Evidently Osama Bin Laden is dead.  As usual, the media is dishing up heaping servings of extreme reactions.  First with the folks being displayed as "true patriots - - Really?  It's alright to run through the streets with an American flag, screaming, "USA, USA!" at the top of your lungs to rejoice over somebody's death?  Should we all buy apple pies and Chevrolets to celebrate even more?  A bad, bad man has been killed.  That's good, right?

But wait - what about the schmaltz I've heard condemning the US, saying everybody needs to just forgive and forget so we can fill our hearts with love?  Seriously? Do you actually believe that? What an insensitive reaction! I very much want to ask them, "Is forgiveness that easy for you? If somebody murdered your loved one could you apply that easy-schmeasy forgiveness, and then promptly walk away, forgetting it ever happened?"

I don't mean to poo-poo on the "don't-revenge-feel-great" parade or mock the hand holding "kum-ba-ya" singers - but I hope that between all the hyperbole, happy-dancing, newly hatched conspiracy theories, media jaw flapping, uber-patriotism, and uber-weirdness...folks get sick of the silly merry-go-round, vomit and get off.

Revenge can never repay an uncollectable debt like a lost life.  It creates a vortex of hatred and a viscious cycle where the victim becomes the perpetrator ad nauseum.  On the other hand, forgiveness is costly to the one granting it.  To cheapen it by saying otherwise only suggests that the person making the comment has never had to forgive somebody for something horrible.

Today, can the rest of us (the silent majority who never have antics worth putting on TV) examine our attitudes on forgiveness and revenge?  Can we vow to avoid the extremes of vengeful thinking or the cheap and cheesy comments on "fauxgiveness"?  Neither is right. 

If the death of Osama Bin Laden causes people to rethink their ideas of revenge, justice and the cost of forgiveness - that would be great - it would be the finest thing he ever accomplished. But please, don't make his death something it's not. It will not redeem any of the evil he did, it will not bring back anybody who has died.  There will still be wars, rumors of wars, more terrorism, and more injustice. 

The only man who ever spilled 10 pints of blood that meant anything significant to history or the human race was Jesus. The one who had the power to exact the greatest revenge, instead paid the costliest price for forgiveness. 

The rest of it  - well, it's just more blood on a planet already slick with it.  I pray for peace and the truth of forgiveness to pierce our hearts and transform us.