Life has been hectic. Since my last post so many wonderful things have happened. I have been to see my grandmother and celebrate her 90th birthday. My son celebrated his 22nd birthday. My son-in-law shipped out for Fallujah, Afghanistan, and I took a week to help my daughter and grandson move back to Greenville for the year. I have sped many miles down I-40 and I-20, and spent the night in the Little Rock Airport. As bookends to my “vacation,” the South Main congregation has enjoyed two of its biggest assemblies in the last six years, but also grieved the passing of two members with deep roots in the church family. Its been a busy time, and I am ready to get back into the routine.
Nationally, the world continues to move onward, and people continue to amaze (a nice word for it). The government is trying to “rhetoric” its way out of the recession, an alleged Nazi prison guard’s trial is on hold because his travel to Germany may be inhumane, and some Somali pirates are doing some linguistic back flips of their own. After the pirates took over a ship by force, held people at gunpoint, shot at one escaping, and have generally given fresh meaning to the term ”thugs,” they are upset the US military responded with force. They are vowing revenge… an interesting choice of words. [Two notes... (1) they have been true to their word, they attacked a trip carrying humanitarian aid to Kenya, and (2) the pirates allege these freighters are actually being targeted because they are fishing in Somalian waters...it has nothing to do with extorting millions of dollars in ransom and stealing valuable cargo.]
The most interesting story of the last weeks, at least to me, comes out of Phnom Penh. That is where Kaing Guek Eav, commonly know as “Duch,” is on trial. In the 1970’s the Khmer Rouge regime of Pol Pot ruled Cambodia 
with an iron fist… and a bayonet. They forced everyone out of the cities and back to the fields. Kids would agonize under forced labor for days. People would be erased for being educated, wealthy, wearing glasses, and, of course, holding any social power that could conceivably rival the government. The valley’s of Cambodia were turned into “The Killing Fields;” an estimated 1/5 of Cambodia was executed, conscripted into military service, starved to death, or died from forced labor. During this time, “Duch” ran the notorious Tuoi Sleng Prison and was the Khmer Rouge’s chief torturer. The methods used to extract “confessions” were vicious beyond horror.
But, Kaing Guek Eav has asked the families of his victims to forgive him. He has admitted his crimes and asked for their forgiveness. What do you do with that?
As I process all this my mind goes back to a Chinese resteraunt in Conway, Ar., just across from the University of Central Arkansas. In 1995 I was eating lunch there. The waitress was oriental with a distinct Asian accent, and I joked with her about obviously not being from Arkansas where you learn to hold those vowels until you get every last drop. She laughed and said she was from Cambodia. I asked her what brought her to Arkansas, expecting to hear something about the college or the computer industry. What followed was an amazing story.
It seems that her family, in the very late 70’s lived in a little village of western Cambodia. It was during this time the Vietnamese declared war on the Khmer Rouge and soon took over the nation. Desperate, the Khmer Rouge took to their native soil… the mountainous jungles. There they began to go from village to village taking the boys of all ages; raising an army by forcing them to be soldiers for the Khmer Rouge. Hearing that they were coming to her little village, this girl’s family feared for her12 year old brother. Scared to death, they packed what they could carry, and headed out into the jungle. She told of the hardships that come with a month of hiding out, on the run in the jungle; scraping out food anywhere they could find it. “We were so hungry,” she said. By day they lived in fear of the Khmer Rhouge…at night it was the tigers, leopards, snakes, python, and crocodile. “When we had passed far enough into Thailand that the Khmer Rouge could no longer reach us,” she said, “we sat down and cried.” The story then followed how she went to school in Thailand, and then became a UCA bear.
As I read about the trial, I wish I could asked her how she feels about it all. You see the person with no personal ties can hear Duch’s request for forgiveness, and wash the slate clean with the easiest of motions… without emotion. But what about those personally involved? Even a couple of steps of separation removed, I feel forgiveness a little harder to dispense. What about those who fled into the jungles? Those who died under the sun of forced labor? How much courage does it take to forgive if your mother or father was tortured because they had an education? How hard is it for them; those for whom the sins of Kaing Guek Eav are not abstract at all, but reside deep in their soul?
Maybe, just maybe, this is a difference between God and I, when it comes to sin. Perhaps it’s why I don’t hate it enough. It would certainly clarify something of the horrors of Calvary. You see, for me, most of the world’s evil is abstract. Most of it victims…and perpetrators, are just faces on the TV, or casual aquaintances. Only a small portion actaully touches me. And its only what hits me and those close to me that hurts…when it’s personal. When I debate evil, and work on my theology of sin it is usually in the abastract. But when I am sinned against, that’s different; I feel the excruciating pain. I experience it personally. Could it be that God knows no “abstract” evil? Could it be that all sin, for Him, is deeply personal? There is no general category of “sin, evil, sinister, etc…” Their is only what happened to Tim, to Sarah, to Janet. Alll of it is taken into himself so that it has happened to him. He bears our stripes… and also our sin. No wonder He hates sin so; no wonder he can’t just look the other way and ignore evil. It is all too close to heart. The cross then makes more sense… and His grace and forgiveness are even more amazing.
