To Write, First Forgive

“There are no accidents in life, only opportunities. I really believe that.”

Holly Payne, author and writing coach, was addressing budding writers at the Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, California, as part of the institution's November 2009 authors’ series.

Her latest book, Kingdom of Simplicity, was named a Bay Area Best Seller by the San Francisco Chronicle. Payne was recalling the origin of Kingdom, and how the events associated with it shaped her life.

She was 22. An avid hiker, she was exploring the trails in Colorado’s Crested Butte at 9000 ft. in the summer of 1994 when she saw two bikers in the dark. Out of concern, she held out her flashlight for them. Next thing she knew, a drunken driver had hit all three of them.

As she lay on the ground, not sure if she was dead or alive, she looked up at the mountains and an inexplicable thought came to her. “It was surreal. As the seconds stretched into eternity, I told myself, if I survive this, I will be a writer. I’m going to write.”

Payne had just graduated from college and dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. She had grown up in the sheltering Amish country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and longed to see the world, to tell stories of people in faraway places.

But now, not only were most of her bones broken, her dream seemed shattered too. She had a choice. She could stay angry at the driver or she could work her way through what fate had dealt her.

She chose the latter. Or thought so. She began writing, finding it to be cathartic, “a little bit of science and a lot of craft.”

But had she let go of her anger? Six months after the accident, a letter reached her from the driver who had hit her, imploring for forgiveness. She would have none of it. She put the letter away in a pile of medical and insurance papers and forgot about it.

Twelve year later, in October of 2006, a horrified Payne read about a schoolhouse shooting in the Amish country of her childhood. A lone gunman had killed five girls execution-style before turning the gun on himself. She returned and discovered that the parents of the slain girls, and the larger Amish community, had already forgiven the killer. In fact, they had opened a fund for his family.

Suddenly, the idea of forgiveness became real for her. The Amish did not believe in holding onto events, however wrenching they might be. They found freedom in forgiveness. In private they were angry and sad but by consciously choosing to forgive the killer, they were able to move to the present and maintain the continuity of their community, their “beautifully complex culture.”

For Payne this was a revelation. She realized that by rejecting the drunken man’s plea for forgiveness, she was living in the past and was, in the scheme of things, perhaps more to blame than he was. Her exterior may have healed but inside, she was still limping.

In forgiveness, Payne discovered her kingdom of simplicity. “If you cannot forgive, you cannot love. And without love, how can you write?” She wrote Kingdom as a response to the letter she refused to read twelve years earlier and dedicated the book to its writer. She was finally free.

In her travels in Europe, Asia and America, Payne has found that all of us have a unique story to tell. Her advice to aspiring writers is to have the courage and the confidence to become story-tellers. “Through stories, we get to know ourselves. If a hotshot editor or agent from New York tells you that your story has 'already been done,' tell him that it hasn’t been done like this.” Learn how to be vulnerable,” she said, “and as you involve yourself with the world, let go of what is holding you back and sit down to write.”

Shock and Anger at Ft. Hood Rampage

A deranged U.S. Army major opens fire at Ft. Hood in Texas and takes 13 lives, injuring many more. There are no ifs and buts about this: No matter what his personal grievances may have been, he is a killer, a cold-blooded murderer, and must pay the price for his heinous crime.

The killer’s name is Nidal Malik Hasan, a Virginia-born American Muslim who joined the Army right after high school, against his parents’ wishes. Nidal justified his decision to join the Army this way: “I was born and raised here. I’m going to do my duty to the country.”

He started out with a noble intention but when it came to preserving that nobility through life’s trials, he failed miserably. He became an Army psychiatrist, trained to heal soldiers suffering from the stress and trauma of war. But the healer turned into a killer, unable to control his inner demons.

Americans of all creed and color have expressed grave misgivings about our involvement in Afghanistan and the illegitimate war in Iraq. But if you are a member of the armed forces, you are bound by certain rules and obligations that the average citizen is not exposed to. If the rules violate your moral and ethical codes, you have several recourse, all spelled out in the Army code of conduct. They are difficult choices, but choices nonetheless.

Nidal Malik Hasan did not want to be deployed to Afghanistan. He became increasingly paranoid and hostile toward his country and its policies. And then one day he cracked and innocent Americans paid with their lives.

Reports are filtering out that he was taunted by fellow soldiers for his faith, that he posted blogs praising suicide bombers and denouncing the U.S presence in Muslim lands. If that is indeed the case, and the FBI and the Army knew that Malik Hasan was a ticking time bomb, what action did they take, if any? This is a question that must be answered. It is one thing to be sensitive about minorities; it is quite another to be lax about behavioral issues that can have deadly consequences.

One detail about the Major stands out: After the death of his parents in 1998 and 2001, “he became more devout.”

The implication seems to be that more devout means becoming prone to extremist behavior.

The argument is too silly to consider. It is enough to point out that if greater devotion led to more carnage, the world as we know it would have ceased to exist long ago.

What probably happened was that Major Hasan found comfort in his own volatile mix of rage, fear and frustration, and acted on the irrational impulse it created. He may have channeled it through a religious subtext of seductive certainty but we shouldn’t be fooled by it.

American Muslims are understandably nervous and disgusted. Even more so are the thousands of Muslims who serve in America’s armed forces. According to the Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council, there are currently 20,000 Muslims serving with honor in the U.S. military. Can they shake off that look of suspicion from fellow soldiers, that unspoken, subtle doubt about their loyalty to the nation? It will not be easy but one can only hope that it will pass with time

Meanwhile, our deepest sympathies are with the families of the fallen. The light of their lives was snatched away in a moment of cruelty. We mourn with them and pray for peace and justice for them.