A Soulful Journey

Many years ago Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem was asked a number of hard questions dealing with the many challenges of making peace. After he was asked how much longer it will take for Jerusalemites to live together in peace he answered, “It's been 100 years since the Civil War, and you still haven’t resolved the problems between the North and the South, between black and white and brown. It’s only been 20 years since Jerusalem was reunited.   Give us time.   We know where we are going.”

A solider in the Civil War left a statement behind.   We do not know his name.   Only this piece of wisdom remains of his life: “I asked God for strength that I might achieve.   I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.   I asked for help that I might do greater things.   I was given infirmity that I might do better things.   I asked for riches that I might be happy.   I was given poverty that I might be wise.   I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.   I was given life that I might enjoy al things.   I got nothing that I asked for, but everything that I hoped for.”

"I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged.   I am willing, perfectly willing to lay down all the joys of this life to help maintain this government.   Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it binds to me in mighty cables that nothing but omnipotence can break.   And yet my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly with all those chains to the battlefront.   The memory of all the blissful moments I have enjoyed with you come crowding over me.   And I feel most deeply grateful to God that you and I have enjoyed them for so long.   And now hard as it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years when, God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our boys grow up to be honorable manhood around us.     If I do not return, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I loved you.   Nor when that last breath escapes...

Our charge in life is not see how angry we can become to prove our strength.  In fact, it is the opposite: Abraham Lincoln was very lenient toward the leaders of the Confederacy, even though they were his enemy during the Civil War.   On of his cabinet ministers chided him, “Why do you treat your enemies with kindness?   You should try to destroy them.” Lincoln answered, “I treat them with kindness because I want to destroy them.   How will I destroy them?   By making them my friends.”