環(huán)球英語 — 547：Healing Memories: Forgiving and Remembering

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Voice 1

Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Ryan Geertsma.

Voice 2

And I'm Robin Basselin. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

On an April day in 1990, Michael Lapsley gathered his mail from the mail box. Among his other letters and bills were two religious magazines. Michael was a priest living in Zimbabwe, Africa. He enjoyed reading his religious magazines. So, he reached down and picked up the magazines. He opened one of them and suddenly there was an explosion.

Voice 2

These magazines contained a letter bomb. Someone sent this letter bomb to kill Michael. Amazingly, Michael did not die. However, he did lose both of his hands and an eye. The bomb also caused great damage to his ears and skin.

Voice 1

This tragic event changed Michael's life forever. But today, Michael uses his experience to help other people to heal from their suffering. Today's Spotlight is on Father Michael Lapsley and his amazing story of suffering, hope, remembering and forgiving.

Voice 2

Michael Lapsley was born in New Zealand. In 1973, he became a Christian priest, in the Anglican Church. After that time, he moved to South Africa. There, he served as a priest in a university.

Voice 1

Before he went to South Africa, Michael had read and learned about the system of apartheid. Apartheid law kept people of different races or skin colors separated. The laws favored the white race. And this made life for non-white South Africans very difficult.

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Michael "knew" all of these things about apartheid. However, when he arrived in South Africa, he was very sad to witness how badly people were separated and oppressed. Michael then knew that part of his work as a priest would be to fight against apartheid.

Voice 1

Michael was white, but he did not agree with the ruling white, apartheid government. So, in 1976, he became a religious leader for the African National Congress, or ANC. This group was an anti-apartheid political organization.

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When Michael became a religious leader for the ANC, he was forced to leave the country. He lived first in Lesotho and then Zimbabwe.

Voice 1

Officials told Michael that the apartheid government wanted to kill him. And in April, 1990, Michael became the victim of the letter bomb. He suffered greatly for his support of the ANC and racial equality.

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After the attack, Michael was hurt - physically, mentally and spiritually. Later, he wrote about the months after the bombing,

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"For the first three months I was as helpless as a new born baby. People have asked me how I survived, and my only answer is that somehow I felt that God was present, even in the middle of the bombing. I also received so many messages of love and support from around the world that I was able to make my bombing something that could redeem - it could bring life out of death, good out of evil."

Voice 1

Michael talks and writes a lot about redeeming. To redeem usually means to pay a price to regain something that was lost. But Michael uses it to mean bringing something good from something evil. Michael believes that he is now a better priest, after the attack, than before. He wrote,

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"Very early on after the bomb, I recognized that if I was filled with hate and a desire for attacking and punishing the people who hurt me, I would be a victim forever. If someone harms us, we are victims. If we physically survive, we are survivors. Sadly, many people never travel past this. I did travel past this point. I went from victim to survivor, to victor. My victory was to move from being an object of history to become a subject of the present once more. That is not to say that I will not always miss what I have lost... Yet I believe I have gained through this experience. I recognize that I can be more of a priest with no hands than with two hands."

Voice 2

After the explosion, Michael recovered for many months in Australia. Two years later, he finally returned to South Africa. By this time, apartheid was slowly ending.

Voice 1

Michael began working as a priest in a special hospital that treated badly injured people. During this time, Michael recognized that he had returned to a country of survivors - those who physically lived through apartheid. But he also recognized that the country and its people were still very damaged.

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So, in 1998, Michael began the Institute of Healing Memories. This organization began by providing a time and place for people to talk about how they suffered under apartheid law. The organization encouraged people to both talk about their suffering and forgive the people that had hurt them. Through this process, people healed the memories of their past instead of just trying to forget what they had been through. Michael explains,

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"Suffering a great pain and shock often makes a person feel like a prisoner of that particular event in history... Our organization helps people to find ways to link their particular events to the past and the present and the future. That way, people can break free from that sense of being trapped in a single event and time."

Voice 1

Today, The Institute of Healing Memories helps people to recover from all kinds of suffering. The organization works with people from many countries and races. And the basic idea is still to heal the memories of a person's suffering.

Voice 2

In 2007, Michael spoke to a group of Anglican priests about how remembering is important to help healing. He said that all three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are religions of remembering.

Voice 1

Michael also shared his belief that God calls people to remember - to remember their own wrong doings, so that they do not do these things again, to remember their own suffering, so that they do not remain victims of their past, and to remember how God redeems suffering by bringing good from evil.

Voice 2

Michael Lapsley has decided to spend his life helping other people to heal the memories of their suffering. But, he believes anyone can help hurting people move past their suffering. And Michael recognizes that there were many people in his life that helped him bring good out of his own suffering. In fact, he closed his speech to this group of Anglican priests with these words,

Voice 3

"Today I want to say thank you - for being God's instruments. Through you he helped me to make my bombing into something that redeems - to bring life out of death, good out of evil - and to travel a path from victim to survivor to victor."