Dousing the Flame - A Sunday Read
It was 35 years ago and I had just started as a junior firefighter. Our engine pulled up in front of a raging housefire - the first of my 30-year career. Rushing up with my gear towards the inferno, I tried to remember everything I'd been taught in training. Sensing my mild confusion, an old veteran put his hand on my shoulder and said: "Son, don't worry about it. Just put the wet stuff on the hot stuff." I never forgot it.This week, Heather Pham offered the same advice in a more human sense to a community in full grief following the slaying of an OPP police officer. What she said and the way she said it will never be forgotten by all who gathered to commemorate the remarkable life of a dedicated public servant. "You're the best Dad in the world," his 7-year-old son Josh said directly to the coffin, with not a dry eye in the arena. But when Heather Pham rose to speak, a moment of profound humanity began to descend on all who held their breath.Onlookers expected the tears, but if they thought they were about to catch a tone of anger, which would be only natural, they didn't get it. Instead emerged words of conciliation and understanding that served to frame her ultimate statement:
As hard as it is, I believe forgiveness is the only way to release ourselves from this pain and anger. To the best of my human ability and with God's help, I will offer it and my hope and prayer is that all of you can do the same."
In all her efforts to bring solace to an entire community she actually performed one of the most sacred accomplishments that accompanies the act of forgiveness: she freed herself. We don't use this kind of language anymore, but that doesn't mean the reality and substance of it has lost its value to us as a nation and as a people. Her husband was slain senselessly. Left to deal with young children and an ache that will likely never leave, she chose to lead an entire community into a realm that they must apply if they seek to move on. And in leading by example she freed herself to move on with her life.Speaking to a congregation shattered by the cruelties of racial discrimination, Martin Luther King Jr. offered consolation by challenging those gathered to listen: "He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love." If that is the case, and I fully believe it is, then the love this woman had for her husband and her God is truly exceptional. The family were church-goers and for them faith was essential to their daily life. And so, on this very traumatic day, she used it - she utilized what she had been taught and learned from her partner and extended that franchise to an entire community. In all of that small town's history, there will rarely be a moment of such complete transformation. But it won't last, can't endure, unless all those present do as she asked: put out the fire - forgive.I was asked to stand in the House on Tuesday and make a statement on Officer Pham's tragic end (http://glenpearson.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/the-gap/). No sooner had I started than the place broke out into an ominous silence. When I concluded, the entire Chamber rose to its feet and applauded. Colleagues from all parties crossed over to shake my hand and offer consolation, including a couple of cabinet ministers. But I was no fool. Their heightened respect was not for me but for the man I was attempted to honour through my feeble words.As helpful as those words might have been, Heather Pham easily transcended them in a plea of remarkable eloquence and reality: forgive, or we'll never be healed. Words we need in this troubled nation more than we might realize.