A Little Homily from Rev. M.A.

Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone, tells of being a child soldier. The violence he committed between the ages 13-16 is horrifying. Becoming a soldier was basically an alternative to death for him. He was brainwashed, drugged, and encouraged to avenge the deaths of other family members. When he was rescued from life as a soldier by UNICEF, he and other child soldiers had to be rehabilitated. They were uncivilized with fighting their main method of communication.

One of the social workers who helped rehabilitate Beah was a woman he calls Esther. One day he shared with her a particularly violent dream. Here’s how he describes the conversation:

At first she just listened to me and then gradually she started asking questions to make me talk about the lives I had lived before and during the war. “None of these things are your fault,” she would always say sternly at the end of every conversation. Even though I had heard that phrase from every staff member—and frankly I had always hated it—I began that day to believe it. It was the genuine tone in Esther’s voice that made the phrase finally begin to sink into my mind and heart.

It was a touching reminder that the things we dislike in other people, often, are not their fault. Often, the things we hate in ourselves are not our fault either. That is a good insight to let sink into our minds and hearts.