{"id":3525,"date":"2021-04-01T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T22:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joseph-wresinski.org\/en\/?p=3525"},"modified":"2021-04-14T10:44:14","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T08:44:14","slug":"its-not-easy-to-forgive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joseph-wresinski.org\/en\/its-not-easy-to-forgive\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s Not Easy to Forgive"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this time of crisis, this message, written in 1984, is as relevant now as in the plea made by Joseph Wresinski at the end of the collection of his writings: <\/em>“Friends, can these children, these mothers, these husbands, wives, this people trapped in extreme poverty rely on you tomorrow? “(Words for Tomorrow, p. 141)<\/em><\/p>\n

For several months now, at the intersection of Cadet Street
\nand Montmartre Boulevard in Paris,
\nyoung women, twenty-five to thirty years old,
\nhave been rummaging through rubbish from a market,
\ndigging into piles of discarded crates and cartons.<\/p>\n

I saw one of them pull out two half-eaten cakes,
\nslipping them stealthily into her bag.
\nSuddenly, two toddlers were standing beside her,
\nand she split a cake between them.<\/p>\n

This scene stunned me so much
\nthat it left me speechless.
\nIt reminded me of all those children
\nwho also used to scrounge through garbage
\nfor scraps of food
\nin the emergency housing camp in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

I remembered those boys who sold their marbles
\nto buy a loaf of bread for their mother\u2019s birthday.
\nI thought I would never see such a sight again.
\nBut, twenty years later,
\nhere was a mother of two
\nfeeding her children other people\u2019s stale cakes.<\/p>\n

Another nightmare
\nI would not have dreamed of anyone going through again
\nstruck in September 1984. Four small children,
\naged eight months to eight years,
\nwere thrown out of a municipal trailer park!
\nThis happened yesterday morning.
\nTheir family had been taking shelter there
\nbeneath a borrowed tent since July.
\nNo one had done anything for them,
\nneither the mayor, nor the police,
\nnor the social worker.
\nExcept, of course,
\nfor placing the children in foster care
\n\u201cuntil things can be worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, for very poor families, life is not just sadness.
\nIt holds peace and forgiveness, mightier than misfortune.
\nThis brings to mind the man
\nI met last August in a cemetery.
\nHis nine-year-old daughter,
\nwhile walking along the sidewalk,
\nwas hit by a car and killed.
\nAfter the burial, her father said to me,
\n\u201cYou know, I was ready to strangle the bastard
\nwho killed my daughter.
\nBut when I got to the police station
\nand saw that the driver was a handicapped woman,
\nI couldn\u2019t say a thing to her.
\nI started thinking how horrible she must feel,
\nknowing she killed my little girl.
\nWe just started to cry together.
\nI told myself people should forgive.
\nBut, believe me, Father, it\u2019s not easy!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this time of crisis, this message, written in 1984, is as relevant now as in the plea made by (…) Read more →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-extracts","category-writings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIt\u2019s Not Easy to Forgive - Joseph Wresinski EN<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.joseph-wresinski.org\/en\/its-not-easy-to-forgive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"It\u2019s Not Easy to Forgive - Joseph Wresinski EN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this time of crisis, this message, written in 1984, is as relevant now as in the plea made by (...) 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