It is indeed a good time of year, a time when love is a core theme. I would like to amplify that theme with three stories, one true, one partly true (maybe), and one fictional but entirely apt.
The true story comes from Salt Lake Tribune, Mercy vs. Grief: Father Must Make Life-or-Death Call in Iran Revolution, Monday, February 7, 2009
Islamic law holds to the dictum of eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth, and life-for-life. A grim example occurred in Iran when a young boy named Hamed violated the newly enforced law which made it a legal sin to break the fast during Ramadan by smoking. He was seen and challenged by a Basiji—enforcer of religious laws—a twenty-four-year-old named Shahid Mohebi. Hamed refused to cooperate and left the area in anger only to return shortly and to start a fight with Shahid, the Basiji. The fight became violent, and a seventeen-year-old hothead, named Morteza Amimi Moqaddam, slashed and stabbed Shahid multiple times resulting in the young Basiji’s death before multiple witnesses. It was December 11, 2008
Moreza was tried in Sharia court, convicted, and sentenced to death by hanging as prescribed by Qur’anic law. At six a.m. on January 2, 2009. Under Sharia law, the murder victim’s father, Ebrahim Mohebi, had the right to overturn the Sharia council’s verdict and to set the murderer of his son free from the fear of hanging for the rest of his life. Not only was it a heavy moral burden, but it had become a nation-wide major political struggle between conservatives and more liberals in the country. Either way Ebrahim chose could spark a massive riot in a country sensitive to power struggles, especially when a religious issue was involved. On the one hand, by law, the murderer of his son, who stood only a few feet from Ebrahim, could pay the ultimate price—death by hanging then and there. Or, as a true and life-long Muslim, and a lover of peace, Ebrahim could—by a few words—free the killer from the death sentence and thereby to incur the wrath of the true believers in the revolution, and might risk being beaten to death by an enraged mob of conservative zealots.
He stood in silence and pondered the quandary. The crowd became silent as well, aware of Ebrahim’s torment. Finally, he spoke, and in a voice that could be heard by all present, said, “God gives life, and God takes it. I will forget about this sin against me so that God will forgive our sins.”
Morteza Amimi Moqaddam was saved from hanging by Ebrahim’s profound act of love. He was led away back to prison to stand for another punishment trial that would not be able to impose capital punishment.
There is a Greek fable about love which may be just that—a fable—or it may be at least partially historic. Who knows?
Once in the mists of time, Zeus and Hermes came to earth as mortals. Dressed shabbily, they were denied food and rest by everyone except Philemon and Baucis, a humble old couple, who gave them the hospitality of their simple cottage. For their kindness, the gods granted the loving couple one wish—that they be allowed to die in the same instant so that neither would have to grieve for the other. As a further boon from the gods, Philemon and Baucis were transformed into trees at their deaths—an oak and a lindon—standing branch to bough through the ages.
-Anonymous
Finally, comes one of the great tales of love from a marvelous little book by Thorton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, written in 1927. It is not about romance nor deep friendship, but about a profound love that transcends both.
Franciscan Brother Juniper happened to be in Peru on the road between Lima and Cusco, at noon on Friday, July 20, 1714 when the great Inca road suspension bridge across the Apurímac River, erected around 1350, still in use in 1864, and dilapidated but still hanging in 1890, collapsed while five people were crossing it. The five travelers were hurled into the gulf below killing them all.
Brother Juniper was troubled by the seemingly random fatal act and worked for six years on a book, trying to make sense of it. He started with the presumption that it was simply God’s will but did not find that explanation to be satisfactory. He examined the event from many angles and points of view, prepared various mathematical formulas to measure spiritual traits, with no results beyond pious generalities. He compiled a huge book of interviews with witnesses, family members, and persons who knew the victims. When he presented the book to the council of prominent priests with complete faith in God’s goodness and justice; the council pronounced his work to be heresy, and the book and Brother Juniper were burned in the town square.
A year after the accident and the burnings, the Abbess was asked by a mother how she can go on, having lost her son and Uncle. The young mother gained some comfort and insight from the Abbess and became a helper at the Convent. The eminent Doña Clara arrived from Spain and sought out the Abbess. She was greatly moved by the work of the Abbess in caring for the deaf, the insane, and the dying. Others sought meaning in the tragedy since all who died were only trying to be of some help to others, and some wished to know how God’s works could be explained by the tragedy. The novel ends with the Abbess’s thoughtful observation: “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”
