LETTERS FROM OKINAWA

“Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother……up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Matthew 18:22 (NIV)

This is a remarkable story. It is the all- too- human story of an American government warehouse worker, Karl Taylor, and his wife, Edith, a factory worker. A very devoted couple, they had been married for twenty three years. Their uncommon bond was such that whenever Karl's job took him on one of his frequent trips out of town, he would write Edith a long letter, accompanied by a gift, from wherever he was at that moment.

And then came the longest trip. In January of 1949, Karl was posted to Okinawa to manage a US warehouse.

Okinawa is Japan's southernmost prefecture, consisting of a dozen few Islands which are also known as the Ryukyu Islands . Okinawa, stage of one of the bloodiest battles of the Second World War, when American troops invaded the Islands, remained under American administration until 1972.

It was to this oriental extremity that Karl was sent, ostensibly for a few months, while Edith, all alone in the little town of Waltham, in Massachusetts, attempted to make the best of a matrimonially untenable situation. As the months rolled by, Edith preoccupied herself by purchasing an unfinished picturesque cottage, and worked hard to complete it. It was going to be a surprise gift for Karl when he came back.

Surprisingly, Karl's letter writing became uncommonly infrequent, slowly petering out to a pathetic lone letter in as long as a month. More alarming, and for some inexplicable reason, he seemed to prefer a protraction of his overseas stay beyond the call of duty.

Finally, after a protracted silence, tragedy struck in the form of a letter from Okinawa: “ Dear Edith, I wish I could find a kinder way to break this news, but we are no longer married……”

Apparently, Karl had applied to Mexico for a divorce, and had been granted his request by post. “……and Edith, I am sorry to inform you that I will soon get married to a Japanese girl over here. She is eighteen years old, and I love her very much. Please forgive me…”

Edith was forty eight years old, and she was shattered and grief-stricken. She had sufficient justification to be bitter, and every known law of human nature was in support of any extreme degree of antipathy she might feel towards Karl and the Japanese girl, whose name was Aiko. Incredibly, this was not the case, as Edith, instead, chose to make excuses for Karl's renegade conduct. He had been pathetically lonely, she told herself. So far away from home, he had probably drank too much sometimes, she tearfully rationalized. And when you added a poor, vulnerable female local to the sad picture, you had the perfect recipe for unmitigated disaster.

Even in her grief, Edith still found Karl's conduct commendable for being honest enough to get a divorce and marry the girl. She, quite frankly, wasn't convinced that the marriage would work because of the gross disparities in their ages and backgrounds. She believed Karl would soon regain his lost sanity and come back home. With a heavy heart, she sold the cottage, refusing to tell Karl about it, and kept her job at the factory. She waited.

But Karl did not come home. His next letter announced that he and Aiko were expecting a baby. The girl, Marie, was born in 1951, followed closely by Helen's arrival in 1953. Edith sent the little girls presents at their christening, and life went on.

Another letter arrived from Okinawa. It bore terrible news. Karl was dying from lung cancer. He poured out his fears to Edith, his long- suffering friend. His medical expenses had wiped out his savings. What would become of Aiko and the girls?

At this point, Edith decided the last gift she could possibly give her former husband was peace of mind . She offered to take the two children to live with her in Massachusetts. Aiko's maternal instincts initially proved to be an understandable barrier to this arrangement, but she finally capitulated when she realized all she could offer the girls was poverty and despair. In 1956, the little girls arrived in America, quickly adjusting to their new environment, and making Edith a very happy woman.

Aiko, all alone in Okinawa, was a very unhappy person. She would write pathetic letters to Edith. Were the girls doing well? Did they cry often? Finally, Edith decided her love for Karl still demanded another price: She would have to bring the children's mother to live with her in the United States. It was, however, a challenging enterprise, as the immigration quota for Japan was exhausted, with many on the waiting list. Edith was undaunted. She sought help from influential Americans, and finally, in 1957, Aiko was granted entry into the US.

As the plane landed at New York's International Airport, then known as La Guardia, Edith was suddenly gripped by fear. What if she felt hate for this woman who had taken Karl away from her? The last passenger to disembark was a thin, frail girl, looking no more than a child. She stood uncertainly on the gangway, clutching the railing, and Edith realized that Aiko was probably alarmingly frightened. She called out Aiko's name, and the hapless girl rushed down the steps into Edith's arms. At that moment, her eye blinded by tears, Edith said a silent prayer: “Help me, dear God, to love this poor girl, as if she were part of Karl. I prayed for Karl to come to me, now he has, in the form of his two little daughters and this poor, gentle girl that he loved. Help me God to love them as I loved Karl. Help me, God.”

And she wept uncontrollably.

Edith and Aiko lived together, raising Karl's two children to become two fine young women.

*

This is a remarkable and poignant story of selfless forgiveness. It is also quite touching, is it not? This is because the tale itself has traces of divinity in it.

One of the greatest lessons we can learn as we traverse this earthly plane is how to forgive. Anger, hatred and simmering resentment all set up barriers that deprive us of spiritual power. Truly, unforgiving and malevolent grudge is a cancer of the soul.

How do you set yourself on the path to being a forgiving person?

First, you have to rid yourself of all judgment. The Bible says, in Matthew 7: 1, “Judge not……..” This is because we can never be in possession of all the information that we need to make an absolutely fair judgment. There will always be facts concealed from us, and known only to God, and that is why it is more appropriate to leave the judging to Him. In any case, none of us is so perfect that we can afford to be ungraciously harsh and unyielding with people who hurt us.

Secondly, you have to become a compassionate person . Admittedly, this remains a difficult thing to do when you are wronged, since the instinctive and primordially animalistic reaction is to fight back and inflict hurt when you think you are wronged. This was what Jesus was trying to eliminate from us when he said in Matthew 5:44, “……do good to those who despitefully use you.” There is a tendency for people to equate kindness with compassion. They are two entirely different entities. Compassion actually involves putting yourself in another's shoes, asking yourself whether the fault is entirely the other person's, or whether you ought to take some share of the blame, imagining what it would be like to feel another's pain and dilemma, taking the focus off yourself for a moment, and then feeling love for the person.

Thirdly, you will need to creatively visualize the entire situation in terms of a reconciliatory attitude . This means actually and actively visualizing the fractured relationship as healed. Picture the poisons of anger and resentment vacating your system. Permit your imagination to run riot with images of what you will accomplish with a renewed, wholesome relationship with the person.

Fourthly, pray for the person who has offended you, and if this proves to be an intractable challenge, as it most often is, pray, rather, for the special grace of God to be delivered to you to say a prayer for the person, and then go ahead to say it. It is imperative that you realize that forgiving the person will be of greater benefit to you than to him. Remember, in your prayers, you ask God to forgive you your debts as you forgive your debtors.

Your antipathy towards someone who has hurt you is not only understandable, but can even be considered quite logical. However, you must immediately start to slant your thoughts towards forgiveness. If you focus exclusively on the shortcomings of people and forget that they have good points, it will be difficult, if not near impossible, to find any good and worthy person in this entire world. The Preacher says it all in his Book, in chapter 7, verse 20, ‘There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins.' Simply, by a conscious act of your will, refuse to hold a grudge against anyone. I put it to you that you cannot develop upper level personality if you allow yourself to collect and hold grievance of any sort. There is an amusing angle to holding grievance. While you are preoccupied with your grudge against some people, they are out dancing and making merry, blissfully and totally oblivious of your negative feelings toward them.

Forgiveness is your key to the kingdom of inner peace. You will find, as is the case with most people, that it is the hardest, yet the most important thing you will ever do. The beauty of this cathartic process is that it will set you free from the past, and wonderfully free up your mind for divine creativity. Allow no man to belittle your soul by making you hate him. Forgiveness is the key to the kingdom of mental and spiritual development. When you become a totally forgiving person, you are emulating the character traits of some of the greatest men and women ever to walk on this earth, and in the process putting yourself on the side of the angels. The regular practice of freely forgiving everyone for everything will make you a calmer, kinder and more compassionate being. Forgiveness recognizes that what you thought your brother did to you, quite simply, has not occurred in the first place. Forgiveness will always be the most powerful thing you can do for your physiology, and for your spirituality.

Put in the most sublime terms, forgiveness ranks as the greatest spiritual act of love you could ever muster for yourself, and for others.