On Principles & Second Chances

Dear Kenomola,

There are principles a person must hold dear. They are your defining principles and they guide your course of action, views, and your response to the world. Principles are like the sail of a boat traversing the ocean. A compass in the hands of an explorer. They are not the end, but your means to the end: A springboard to the essence of who you are. All men falter at the altar of principle. We slip, we struggle. Sometimes we lower our sails and close our compasses because the journey seems too hard. Other times, the magnetic field goes haywire and the True North is lost. We lose ourselves sometimes, in the midst of the trials life presents. Few things can be more scary than the loss of a degree of certainty which is what our principles often represent.

An interesting concept in religion is sin

Another interesting one is grace.

When we fall or falter, sin shows up. It taunts us as our boat floats listlessly, and as we look to the sky in search of the True North that seems to have left us. What we do in those moments can be life defining. Do we stay down and let the ebb and flow of life lead us? Or do we fight back?

Sin tells us we are not worthy, we have failed our principles, we have failed ourselves and as such, what we deserve is eternal shame and perpetual ridicule. Grace says no, mercy stands tall and lifts us.

As we get swept up in a wave of anger, and the righteousness of condemning wrong actions, it is important to remember the beauty of grace. The wonder of second chances.

Second chances do not mean that the offender will not get his or her due. It is simply a reminder that we all falter, and we all deserve an opportunity to be more. No man is ever one thing: Evil, good, bad, kind.

We remain a mosaic, a precarious balance of Ying and Yang. My teacher in school always said that whenever you point one finger at a person, 3 more are pointing at you. It is not that we should not point, but even as we point, we should remember our faults too. So, when we deliver justice, we also deliver grace: Grace that brings forth redemption.

Yours lovingly,
Me.