Have they, then, never journeyed about the earth, letting their hearts gain wisdom, and causing their ears to hear? Yet, verily, it is not their eyes that have become blind – but blind have become the hearts that are in their breasts! Surah 22:46
Umar ibn al-Khattab was a close companion to Prophet Muhammad and eventually became his son-in-law. After the death of the Prophet, he succeeded Abu Bakr as the second caliph on 23 August 634. Known for his pious and just nature, he was recognized as one who distinguished between right and wrong.
Yet, before he accepted Islam, Umar was a vehement opponent of Prophet Muhammad. As narrated by his family, Umar fell to his knees upon hearing Surah 20 recited. With the sword he had previously intended to use to kill the Prophet, Umar found the Prophet and then placed the sword on the ground and kneeled in submission to God’s call.
Like Umar, St. Paul, the Evangelist who lettered many of the Epistles of the Christian Testament, was on his way to Damascus, on a deadly mission to kill “people of the way” when he too experienced a conversion and became a follower of Jesus, the Christ, the Anointed One. (See The Acts of the Apostles 9:1-19).
How do blind hearts gain wisdom? Maybe the energy needed will not be to the extreme of Umar or Paul who were committed to a deadly duty at the time of their conversion. Yet, transformation will always need the liveliness and the loveliness of hearts gaining wisdom.
Will we be able to be, to bear, and to give an ongoing birth to our best selves, our deeper selves, a discovery which needs our promise of a life-long process, even willing to hurl ourselves into a “hot fire that melts away all dross?” (See Isaiah 1:25; Proverbs 25:4). Will we choose to let go of being “right” in order to be in right relationship with ourselves, each other, nature, and our Sustainer?
Mystery-embraced leads us to universal truths, just as it led John Newton, an 18th century slave-trader, to pen Amazing Grace, a hymn for the world. Newton, self-convicted of the evil of his slave-trading, simultaneously recognized, within a full embrace, that he, never-the-less, was held by God’s mercy and forgiveness, thy Sustainer, a Giver of Grace!
The first verse, Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see is about blind hearts gaining wisdom.
How do chasmal transformative changes come about? How is evil transformed to the good? How does a life of narrow scope become a new life where you fall to your knees within the ground spell of thankfulness and gratitude and a call to usher inner peace for all.
The Qur’an is clear. No one is beyond saving. No one is defined by the worse thing they ever did. No one, no matter how bent on committing evil acts, will be lost forever, if only they…
“Wake up and be healed, dear precious people, dear cherished humanity, dear vessels of my Light.” (See Surah 24). Like the beauty of the bee who creates its nectar, will you find your beauty, your essence, your purpose? It’s never too late.
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My good friend and mentor, the Rev. Dr. Gideon Khabela, was one of the founding members of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). As Chaplain, he entered towns throughout South Africa, before the Commission arrived, in order to prepare people who wanted to tell their personal stories of violence under Apartheid Rule.
Could those who were abused trust that in their painful retelling, they would be held up with dignity, which honored their experience of such horrific acts? To not make people safe in their recounting and honor their dignity and courage would be to perpetuate even further the inhumanity that almost destroyed them. And would the truth be heard, especially from the perpetrators who committed so many acts of evil?
Gideon introduced to me the word, ubuntu, a Zulu word, which means that a person is a person through other people.
I am because we are.
For Gideon, ubuntu spoke to the soul of his country as its intent to reconcile became the cornerstone of the social contract in post-Apartheid South Africa.
To practice ubuntu and to be described as a person with ubuntu, you need to aware of your own prejudice, anger, fear, and bleak emotions. You don’t project your own limitations onto another person, thinking that they become the embodiment of your own messy struggles. You need to own your own struggles, that might even include heinous crimes, without justifications. Never easy.
The members of the Commission were charged with defining how people who had committed crimes would receive amnesty, with no prison time. The perpetrators were required to confess truthfully their heinous crimes. Rather then rely on retributive justice, the country was embracing a restorative justice, as a way to heal.
There was one problem. The Commissioners wanted to require the perpetrators to repent. If you weren’t sorry for your crimes, how in the world should you receive amnesty? Gideon was in this camp. It was beyond his imagination that the Commission would provide freedom to those who were not willing to show remorse and ask for forgiveness for their crimes.
And then came the challenge that Justice Hassan Moll, a faithful Muslim and the TRC Chair, gave to the Commissioners, most who were Christian.
He was clear: “If you require remorse than you are compromising the truth. Who will not lie about “being sorry” if it means they will not go to jail? You can’t have both truth and repentance. If you demand regret, sorrow, guilt, or shame, some folks will ‘fake it ‘til they make it.’ And truth will be violated. Don’t we want to know what the perpetrators did? Don’t the victims want to know where the dead bodies are? Who were the collaborators and what were their motivations? What lies did they invoke to cover their heinous evil acts? We want to expose all of the ways people were bent on denying the truth, all of it. And they may not be sorry.”
And then Justice Moll said something that moved Gideon with a word he had never heard before. “Trust in fitra, the God-given gift of knowing the good, the fuel that feeds the engine of ubuntu. Those who are ready to ask for forgiveness will ask and repent… and the rest, well, leave them to God.”
Gideon told me that Justice Moll changed the direction of the Commission. The Commissioners all agreed that they wanted the truth. They let go of “the confessional.” Gideon said that once he let go of his enemies’ need to confess, something miraculous happened. He had the freedom to look at the enemy lurking within himself.
He had to confess his own crimes of letting down his people because of his own fear and anger and weaknesses. He had to process his own vulnerabilities. By not attacking others and justifying those attacks as righteous, he had to look into the eyes of the person he previously hated and see their humanity. He had to use words of ubuntu and fitra that affirmed the logic of peace and the reality that we are one humanity under God.
These acts were the beginning of the transformation of self and the transformation of society because as the 14th century Persian poet Hafiz asserts, “The words we speak become the house we live in.”
Gideon told me, “Never underestimate the first step toward making peace. You take a step and become a man or a woman of the moment. A precious moment.”
Day 17: Reflection
A life of faith invites us to a glorious journey of transformation. Reflect today on times when your heart gained wisdom. The Sustainer will offer you all that you need in this journey, inviting and always providing provisions so your ears will hear and your hearts will gain wisdom. You are always becoming your own spiritual awakening.
