ForgivenessAndLove

The front page of the New York Times on November 12, 1996, juxtaposed two extraordinarily moving stories:

• "She Opened World to Others; Her World Has Opened, Too" by Rick Bragg tells about Oseola McCarty, a washerwoman of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She accumulated savings of $150,000 over her lifetime and then gave it all to her local college for scholarships. She didn't ask for any acknowledgement or fame. She just wanted to help people go to school who otherwise couldn't afford to. She left school herself when she was eight years old, to work and support her family. Until her selfless gift came to the attention of others, she lived in near-poverty, alone.
• "A Painful Road From Vietnam to Forgiveness" by Elaine Sciolino tells what happened to Phan Thi Kim Phuc, the little girl seen in the famous 1972 photo running naked and burning from a napalm bombing attack. She recovered partially from horrible injuries after 14 months in the hospital; she grew up, married, escaped to Canada, and now has a young child. She is still frequently in pain, from aftereffects of being burned over more than half of her body. But in 1996 she came to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, and spoke of how important it is to live with a spirit of forgiveness. "We cannot change history, but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future to promote peace," she said.

Both Ms. McCarty and Ms. Kim Phuc found their way through a lifetime of challenges to a state of love. Those of us who are more fortunate may wish to think, constantly, about how we can and should follow their examples.

• Thursday, May 06, 1999 at 21:11:51 (EDT) = Datetag19990506

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(correlates: RoomToRead, AntiBumperstickerization, LastGoodDeed, ...)