FALL EDUCATION SERIES
Speaking the Truth in Love
Nelson Mandela and the Power of Forgiveness
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St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
310 West Lewis Street
Four Thursdays, Beginning September 19th 2013, at 7:00 pm
(406) 222-0222 or standrewsepiscopalchurch.org
We will examine the practice of forgiveness, using Nelson Mandela’s life and witness as a starting point, in a four-week series at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church at the corner of 3rd and Lewis, beginning on September 19, 2013 and continuing on September 26, October 3, and October 10. Each meeting will begin at 7:00 pm and end at 8:30. The public is warmly invited to attend!
One of the great spiritual triumphs of modern history is Nelson Mandela walking out of prison after twenty-seven years of incarceration with his spirit and his heart intact. He did not merely survive prison; he emerged with compassion and generosity in his heart, especially toward those who were his most powerful enemies. The question is: how? What sustained him during those dark decades of imprisonment? And what can we learn from Nelson Mandela about the power and practice of forgiveness? How can each of us learn to love in the difficult places, the places that require the spiritual discipline known as forgiveness?
“I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Human goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.”Nelson Mandela
