Radical Forgiveness

When I read the blog about Pope John Paul forgiving the man who shot him 6 times, I was in a complete state of shock.  I cannot even imagine how much strength and faith it took the late Pope to forgive his almost assassin.  Personally, I find it extremely hard to forgive someone who may have talked about me behind my back and I cannot find the strength to forgive.  I feel guilty saying that I have trouble forgiving people at times because I am causing hate and anger in the world, but it is extremely hard to forgive someone who has hurt you or a person you love in some way.  But it is absolutely unbelievable to me that the Pope forgave the man who almost killed him...the thought is utterly mind blowing.  I am glad the Pope found love and forgiveness in his heart to forgive this man with the help of God and I think every human being should look at the Pope's actions as a role model for their own life.  Forgiveness is hard, but without forgiveness there is no peace or love, and this is what starts wars and violence and hatred.  Even though I would find it extremely difficult for myself to forgive someone who tried to kill me, I commend the Pope for his faith and large amounts of forgiveness.

The Messy World

Just as Kofi Annan said in an interview on "The Daily Show with John Stewart", the world is indeed "messy".  I believe the world needs to come together and find eternal peace and work together and fix problems such as world hunger or government control.  We as a whole live on this Earth together and set forth to follow God's plan, not to fight with each other for control or power.  Just as the article said, why is peace so difficult for humankind?  How much is it going to take for everyone to come together and find peace?  The world should not hate one another and fight for land or power.  How many dying children is it going to take for the world to realize we need to solve world hunger and equally distribute and share goods?  How many terrorist attacks is it going to take to fix all the violence in the world?  These questions need to be answered before the world goes into another World War.
When I watch the news and see all the the violence in our own city of Philadelphia, I get immensely sad.  Many people break into stores or banks because they are so desperate in need of food or money, they go to extreme measures to get it.  Also, people need to stop with the racism and all the violence and stop shooting each other in the streets.  Killing someone and causing violence only causes more problems.  I try to do the best I can in my own life by helping others around me with there problems and cause peace.  The little things definitely do matter in the world.  I always talk with my friends and give them advice in their life because we are all brothers and sisters and children of God.
The Gospel message tells us to follow God's word and to love your neighbor as you love yourself and treat others how you want to be treated.  We as a global community need to really come together and find peace and love each other, or else thousands of innocent people will die from all the violence and hate.  We as a nation need to solve our problems first by keeping the nation together and not having states secede from the nation.  We need to solve all the messiness in the world fast, or another war will start causing chaos and destruction everywhere.