Healing of the Soul

I recently re-read my friend Herb Mesa’s autobiography. It was very moving and powerful. Today, I want to share a small piece of this with you. Herb was fighting with the Marines in the South Pacific in World War II. They had invaded the island of Saipan, and after a long gut-wrenching night in the trenches, Herb wrote:

“Later that (next) day, in a bomb crater, I sat by myself to eat my C-rations. It was a crater made by one of our shells. As I ate, the sand below my feet, finding a vacuum beneath, began to sift much like the sand in an hourglass. Suddenly a hand was exposed. Buried beneath this debris was a broken body. I was so moved that I kept looking at that hand. I looked for a wedding band, but either he was not married or the Japanese did not wear wedding bands. I was deeply touched. Was that a trigger finger I saw? Was he a sniper that killed or wounded my comrades? Did he have a family? Was he really young, or older? I was so moved that relating to him in the only way one does in such a distressing situation, I surprised myself with an impulsive gesture of solidarity, full of implications. I reached and touched his hand, now cold and rigid. Was this what Jesus meant when he said, “forgive your enemies?” Too late… but maybe not too late. Maybe the great achievement of forgiveness is not so much that it absolves the one forgiven as that it cleanses the one who forgives.”

In that crater on that war-torn island, even though he disagreed profoundly with the devastation the Japanese soldiers were causing, Herb acknowledged a common humanity with his enemy and began to find healing in his own soul.

Let us pray: Holy God, help us to forgive others as we have been forgiven. And as we do, may we begin to sense your healing grace wash over us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.