Reflection This Week
A REMINDER, EVEN IN DEATH

   They say that history is usually kinder to us than is our present. When the annuals of our generation are written, most of us will not even get a line, let alone a mention. The world will neither note nor remember us. Perhaps that is as it should be. The past is passed and we cannot live in it. We can learn from it, from those who went before. That’s why we write and read histories. How much we learn from history is another question altogether given the fact that we seem to make the same mistakes as did our ancestors.

   Nevertheless, there are moments when the past meets the present, when we are given the opportunity to look back into history and discern whether we have learned anything from it and have become better for it. Such was the case the past few weeks when we as a nation, and even as a world, celebrated the life and death – and, for us as Christians, the new life – of President Gerald Ford.

   The truth is, if my memory of thirty years ago serves me correctly, I was probably not a great fan of President Ford given my Democratic genes. I was certainly happy that his predecessor was out of office given the state the country was in over the War in Vietnam and the Watergate Affair. We needed a breath of fresh air and, in retrospect, it probably could not have come from a better person than the unassuming common man – and devout Episcopalian – Gerald Ford.

   History has been kind to President Ford. He deserved it. Yet, while some think his pardon of President Nixon to be a blot on his record, I think it was and is a both a badge of honor and a result of his faith. Too many politicians these days, at least in my opinion, wear their faith on their shirt sleeves then roll up those same sleeves to muddy their hands in waters and ways that are blatantly unchristian. But, then, don’t we all?

   President Ford’s pardon was and is a reminder that as long as we hold on to past sins, past mistakes, even past crimes, we cannot move on. Had President Nixon been put on trial, the country would have come to a standstill. That is not to say that what President Nixon did was acceptable, that he did not break any laws. It is simply to say that punishment never undoes the crime that had been committed and that sometimes seeking vengeance only makes matters worse.

   Like the woman caught in adultery, we have all found ourselves surrounded by those who wanted to punish us for our misdeeds and mistakes yet had made mistakes of their own and of their own volition. President Ford understood this truth. He knew that difference in degree, in the end, really makes no difference. No punishment would have fit the crime nor, more importantly, would have made it go away.

   We all make mistakes, accidental and deliberate. Attempting to justify them is just as futile as trying to erase their consequences. Punishing others for theirs or punishing ourselves for our own may make us feel better for the moment and perhaps may even be legally justified. Yet there are times when the law be damned for the salvation of all.

   That was Jesus’ message to both the woman caught in adultery, to those who would stone her and to us today. That was President Ford’s message to us as a nation and as a world all those years ago, just as it is today and all the tomorrows to come. May we never forget it. May we go and do likewise. Thank you, Mr. President, for your courage, your faith and your example. Rest in peace.                       WJP