Building Bridges

president of South Africa, is an icon for peace and forgiveness. He spent 27 years in prison. He was separated from his family and friends. He suffered hard labor, solitary confinement and humiliation at the hands of his captors.

When he finally became free, it would have been easy for him to give in to hatred. It would have been easy for him to seek revenge. Instead, he chose to forgive and set an example for the world.

Of course, some things are easy to forgive, but other things are more difficult to let go. Where you stand on whether the next man deserves forgiveness might depend on how much you use the internet.

Hector Black once found himself in such a dilemma.

As a World War Two veteran, Hector was familiar with man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. Yet he always saw the good in people and tried to do the right thing. In the 1960s he became a civil rights activist. He moved to Atlanta to assist Martin Luther King in his quest for equality.

Hector practiced what he preached and adopted a nine-year-old called Patricia Ann Nuckles. Patricia was from a troubled background. Her mother was an alcoholic schizophrenic. In her new home, the shy little girl blossomed.

Patricia graduated from college and decided to follow in her father’s footsteps. She found a job helping people.

that people think he is a fool for forgiving Ivan, but he explained that he had no choice but to forgive. Hector said, “The Lord knows we all need to be forgiven.”Hector chose to not poison himself with hatred. After being imprisoned, beaten, starved and tortured for nearly two years, former POW Eric Lomax waited almost 50 years to make a similar choice.

killing Nagase, but after finally meeting him everything changed.

In 1993, nearly 50 years later, the two old soldiers met on the bridge across the river Kwai.

A nervous Nagase bowed and said, “I am very, very sorry. I never forgot you. We treated your countrymen very, very badly.”

Lomax acknowledged war brings out the worst in all of us, regardless of nationality.

He simply replied, “We both survived.”

Lomax finally forgave Nagase and said, “I have proved for myself that remembering is not enough if it simply hardens hate. Some time the hating has to stop.” Nagase’s humble response was, “I think I can die safely now.”Lomax told the New York Times, “I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing.” He added, “We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since.” Lomax and Nagase died a year apart in 2011 and 2012 after maintaining a friendship through their twilight years.