Absolution
- Posted by Steve K. on February 7th, 2007 filed in Photography, Writing
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Photographer David duChemin (who often works for World Vision, among other orgs) has written a powerful reflection on forgiveness, inspired by a recent trip to India. He writes,
“We long as a race for absolution and we will do anything we can to have the shadows of our past, our deepest secrets, the things we’ve done and those things done to us — struck from our record and chased by the light. No matter what differences our faiths place between us, no matter how different our language, culture, history, skin — we hunger deeply for forgiveness and we share a common sense that we suffer terminally from sin. …
“While it is true that many of the major faiths teach similar things in regards to their ethics, what is different and what will bind my heart to the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth is that He dispenses forgiveness — not cheaply but without cost to ourselves. Except our lives but that is less a cost than it is a reasonable response by a soul in love. To the Christ there is none who is untouchable, none undeserving, none beyond the broad reach of forgiveness — and that trumps all the wisdom of Buddha, the complexity of the Hindu pantheon, the might of Allah, and the appeals and distractions of Mammon. To be absolved is to be loosed from our past and freed to live our present. It is to have hope for the future. And it is to be given the power to ‘pay it forward’ and loose forgiveness on others. It’s a deep kicking at the darkness that plagues our race and our hearts.”
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