I posted this on my FB page a week or so ago, and decided to repost it here. I believe this is the truest, most Christian response to a terrorist incident I've ever heard. I think we need to read something like this to offset what's happening south of the Canadian border.
No Walls:
This is Kevin Vickers, the man who, in October of 2014, helped bring down a terrorist who had just killed a young Canadian Corporal (Nathan Cirillo) who was standing guard at the War Memorial, The terrorist then proceeded to the Parliament Buildings, probably headed for the House of Commons chambers where Parliament was meeting, intent on killing our elected government officials.
A former RCMP officer, Vickers was now serving as Sergeant at Arms, and was responsible for enforcing safety, peace and order on Parliament Hill. When he applied for the job, he quoted Robert Frost's poem "Mending Fences": "Before I built a wall I'd ask to know/What I was walling in or walling out,/And to whom I was like to give offense."
He then said, “If you make me the sergeant-at-arms, there will be no walls built around this building.” There were tears in the eyes of the people interviewing him when he spoke those words.
After the terrorist incident, he returned home to New Brunswick. He and his family celebrated a mass at their home, during which he prayed for the man he'd shot and killed, and forgave him. He also prayed for the man's mother; and Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and his family. He said, “The nation was traumatized [by this incident.] “We can hate, we can reject or we can use the tool in the toolbox called forgiveness.”
He makes me proud to be a Canadian.
No Walls
No Walls
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- Seargeant at arms Kevin Vickers.jpg (140.93 KiB) Viewed 5556 times
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
- RoseMorninStar
- Posts: 12925
- Joined: Fri Dec 14, 2007 11:07 am
- Location: North Shire
Re: No Walls
Thank you for sharing Sunny. I think I've become rather cynical and angry at the lack of Christian response to all sorts of crisis and people in distress. It's a good to remember that there are good people in the world.
My heart is forever in the Shire.