re-write your story

Maybe I don't mean re-write, maybe I mean write your history. Shine a bright light on your past. Get past your past. Get rid of old bad karma.

I was given a ticket to see Desmond Tutu in a Temple in Swampscott, MA. He was on a book tour with No Future Without Forgiveness. He made it clear that he didn't mean a lousy future without forgiveness, he meant NO future. He expressly talked about USA losing its chance in the world unless we came to a real place of forgiveness regarding our treatment of the First Peoples and Slavery. This followed his stunning part in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa.

He always has such an extremely positive love of life and of his life that when he told a piece of his history which could have crippled an ordinary man, he made us feel happy for him.

When he was Bishop of Johannesburg, South Africa during apartheid, there was a great beautiful mansion for the Bishop to live in. He, of course, was forbidden to live there because he was a black man. So, after working all day, he had to go back to the black township (think ghetto, slum) and live like any black man in South Africa. You can only imagine his radiant smile when he spoke of how lucky he was to get to spend the nights with his friends and relatives, living as they did. How lonesome and isolated he would have been if he had had to live in a big mansion like all the other Bishops.

Many people could have told that piece of their past with great resentment, anger, hurt, victimhood, but that was not Tutu's choice. So, choosing to be grateful for that experience released him from it. He no longer caries it around on his back. He no longer suffers from it. He has freed himself from the bad karma and by doing so has set an example which helped transform a country.

Thinking about his story always blows my mind.