Yesterday I visited the Antietam Battlefield. Antietam is actually a creek just outside a small town in Maryland. Near that creek was fought the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.
I stood where, in a single day, 23,000 men were killed or wounded! I walked around a church yard that became a battleground.
I stood on a peaceful hilltop and thought about husbands, fathers, and sons who did not return to their families.
I saw monuments soaring into the clouds to honor and commemorate those who died, and those who lived.
I thought about the horror of war as I heard about how men, for three hours, fought back and forth in a corn field. I saw the farm where over 700 men were buried in a mass grave. Bodies were dragged into the grave with bayonets that had been refashioned into hooks. There was a field where over a year later bleached bones still lay on top of the ground.
I walked down a quiet little farm lane that became a river of human blood!
And, I saw a banner from the 75th commemoration of the battle.
My thoughts? My thoughts went to the rhetoric of today. And I was overwhelmed with the sense of how we ALL need to forgive. We do not need to say, "They", we need to say "I"!
Whenever you stand praying, forgive,
if you have anything against anyone,
so that your Father who is in heaven
will also forgive you your transgressions.
Mark 11: 25
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