With a clean heart, everything is new

These are the words the pastor used in the service we attended this morning in Kigali. He used it in the context of many circumstances, including the experience that Rwandans have had over the past fifteen years. He asked how they could see one government order the killing of other Rwandans, then another government imprison those who were responsible, then later release them to live in the community. He said it was "too much." The only way to understand it was to absorb Ezekiel's words that God would give us a clean heart, and with a clean heart, everything is new.

Yesterday we had the "hard" privilege of experiencing the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre. It is, as you might imagine, a very personal experience, and one which I will not try to convey in this blog. But the same theme emerged from the memorial. Unlike many other museums, it is very "holistic" for want of a better term. It includes the history of the intentional acts leading up the genocide, and the consequences, both physical, psychological and economic, of the 100 days in 1994 and the time leading up to it. Then it takes a different tack. It gives a history of all the genocides that have occurred - limited only to those that have taken place in the 20th Century. It is an attempt to educate about the intentional nature of genocide, so that perhaps what occurred in Armenia, Namibia, Germany and Poland, Cambodia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, will not be repeated. Indeed, there are elephant pots outside holding flowers, as a symbol of remembering the past.

Finally, There was the theme of reconcilation, both in the gardens so beautifully constructed outside - including the garden of reconciliation, and inside, with a reconcilation room with videos of the tribunals seeking both justice for the victims and some sense of putting it behind them so they can go forward and live together. I couldn't help thinking of this when I listened to the pastor talk about " a new heart" for the country of Rwanda. If such a thing is possible for people who have been through so much more than we can ever imagine, how can we do less?