#36 - Grace

"No one has the right to do wrong, even when wrong has been done to him" - Viktor E. Frankl

It may be human nature to want to strike back and get revenge when you or someone you love has been wronged. Nobody wants to be perceived as being "weak" by others. Growing up in the city of Detroit in an urban environment I was exposed to people being wronged or disrespected (dissed) on a daily basis. Kids were always testing each others manhood. As if we were in a jumgle, much of seemed to be a natural weeding out process, a veritable "survival of the fittest". Survival is one thing. That's our animal instinct talking. What is better is moving beyond that simplistic mode of thinking. We are past the point in our evolution where we don't have to hunt game to maintain our survival, or band together in gang-like fashion and wage petty and pointless "turf" wars. Conflict to establish physical dominance is an outmoded way of life.

Mr. Frankl, who wrote the above quote, was held at a Nazi concentration camp. Who would've had more reason for moral outrage than the Jews against the Nazis? Millions of them were imprisoned unfairly, tortured, beaten, broken and exterminated out of a government and country's fear, misplaced aggression and sheer ignorance. It was senseless and one of the most shameful blights and mass genocides in human history. In his seminal work "Man's Search for Meaning", he says that even though the Nazi's committed these atrocities, it would solve nothing to strike back against them and continue the cycle of destruction and hate. Their righteous suffering didn't give them the right or special privilege for equal retribution. Excess bitterness would continue the chain of victimhood that needed to be broken and not continue unabated. If you continue the cycle and escalate matters because you feel justified by the wrongs done to you, then destruction and more hate are sure to follow. No one ever gets "even". Once you forgive and accept, you can break the chain and move on to a higher level of living. This being the rarest of states: a state of grace. You will have succeeded where the mongers of hate and misery have failed, and subsequently wallow in their limited and spiteful existence far worse off, never knowing the peace and love you've opened your heart to. The universe has a way of punishing those who appear to thrive using evil means. It requires a special kind of person to have that kind of faith and let the Lord do his work.