“Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you. Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity.” – Pir Vilayat Khan

No matter how extreme the circumstances, a transformation of the heart is possible. Once on the train from Washington to Philadelphia, I found myself seated next to an African American man who had worked for the State Department in India, but had quit to run a rehabilitation program for juvenile offenders in the District of Columbia. Most of the youths he worked with were gang members who had committed homicide.

One fourteen-year-old boy in his program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. At the trial, the victim’s mother sat impassively silent until the end, when the youth was convicted of the killing. After the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared directly at him and stated, “I’m going to kill you.” Then the youth was taken away to serve in the juvenile facility.

The mother of the slain child went to visit his killer. He had been living on the streets before the killing, and she was the only visitor he’d had. For a time they talked, and when she left she gave him some money for cigarettes. Then she started step by step to visit him more regularly, bringing food and small gifts. Near the end of his sentence she asked him what he would be doing when he got out. He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to set him up with a job at a friend’s company. Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home.

For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job. Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk. She sat down opposite him and waited.

Then she started, “Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you?” “I sure do,” he replied. “Well, I did,” she went on, “I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That’s why I started to visit you and bring you things. That’s why I got you the job and let you live here in my house. That’s how I set about changing you. And that old boy, he’s gone. So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you’ll stay here. I’ve got room, and I’d like to adopt you if you let me.” And she became the mother of her son’s killer, the mother he never had.

Our own story may not be so dramatic, yet we have all been betrayed. We must each start where we are. In large and small ways, in our own family and community, we will be asked to patiently forgive over and over.

“Do not ignore the effect of each wise action saying, ‘This will come to nothing.’ Just as by the gradual fall of raindrops the water jar is filled, so in time the wise become replete with good.” – Dhammapada

With Metta,
Jack

*This story originally appeared in Jack’s book, The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace, and is studied deeper in Jack’s new online course, Opening the Heart of Forgiveness: A Journey of Reconciliation, Redemption, and Renewal