It Wasn't Roaring, It Was Weeping: Interpreting the Language of Our Fathers Without Repeating Their Stories

by Lisa-Jo Baker

1984 is a story frozen in time, fossilized on our farm. The Karoo, with its dolerite-capped mountains, ancient time line, and vast semidesert plains, is famous for its fossils. And the footprints of the White Afrikaner tribe, with its fanatical claim as a chosen people, superior race, called by God to take possession of the land and subdue the natives, linger like trace fossils—providing indirect evidence of a past life preserved in the attitudes, anecdotes, and apartness on our farm.

But I am learning that some scars are not the opposite of love. Sometimes they are the proof of its passing through. Where love is stitched into even the most painful stories.

Translation listens to the words. Interpretation listens to the person as much as it listens to the words.

We are all decoding the characters in our lives, and some of us are brave enough to see how our choices impact the lives of the people we share stories with. The very bravest write new stories. They pick apart their plotlines and find endings that aren’t dictated by their bloodlines. No matter how deep into the narrative they are, the bravest believe on ordinary Tuesdays that it’s still not too late to write a new ending.

To forgive is not to forget. South Africa bears witness to this truth. To forgive is to see and to know the truth. And in knowing that you have been wronged, to choose to release the rage and the debt of pain owed you. Forgiveness is not an erasing of pain. It is looking the pain in the eyes and honoring it and then releasing it.

And it does not require the participation of the perpetrator. But granting forgiveness helps us rediscover the humanity of the person who has wronged us. Asking for forgiveness helps us rediscover our own humanity. This is grace—the giving or receiving of what is not deserved.

The grace of forgiveness helps us hold on to our shared humanity. It recognizes and creates room for change. But even if the other person neither sees nor acknowledges nor changes, if we are willing to forgive, we can change our own story. Not overnight. Not easily. But daily, small steps become a long journey in the direction of forgiveness.