In my travels I meet many people who are more than willing to share their issues with me. I guess it is easier to open up to a perfect stranger who lives miles away and that you are not likely to casually meet again in the streets or at the local grocery store.
A story that came my way recently is that of a father who left an inheritance to his children. I cannot share specifics on this so you will have to forgive me for being stingy on details with this one. The father had had serious issues with his wife, which, after her death affected his relationship with his children. The inheritance of course consisted of money, but due to these issues, there were some stipulations in the deceased father’s wishes that were likely to also pass on some of these former enmities and bitternesses. This would have the effect of continuing the feud of the previous generation on to the next. Though being serious about the importance of the last wishes of their dying father, the children decided to discard the negative elements in the father’s wishes in order to let go of the feud. The decision of these children left me pondering. From East to West, whether on the religious, racial, political, or even ethnic scene, our world today mostly reacts on the inherited feuds of our fathers. Let us pause for a moment and imagine what would happen if like these wise children, we would filter out from the inheritance the old enmities and feuds that cause anger, distrust, and eventually lead to a dysfunctional world with no ends of wars passed on from generation to generation.
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