keep the façade going

Sunday September 14^th, Genesis 50: 15 When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 'This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.' Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept. Lies tend to need more lies to keep them afloat.  Behind their fear was the thought that Joseph might try to act the same way they acted.  It would be nice to be able to point only to the other when bringing up wrongs, but alas, it is seldom the case.  How many times have you been caught in a bit of a cover-up only to find you need more of a cover-up to keep the façade going?  In the national arena there is the perception that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth, and swift-boating becomes a verb to describe that process, fox news has perfected it while calling it fair and balanced, itself a lie.  When the message came to Joseph, he wept.  Sometimes that is all you can do, weep for the depths to which we are all capable of stooping.  Weep, and then try to change the cycle of hate and lies and retribution and in the act of forgiving, saying, “no more?”  How do we move on from Sept. 11^th?  In all honesty we will never get all the lies that followed this tragic event and led us into a war that killed tens of thousands, destroyed the lives of so many and threw the world economy into a tailspin.  We must look back and say that what Ben Laden started on this day was completed by Bush, Chaney, Rumsfield, ISIS and others.  But can we move forward?  Can we put the lies behind us while at the same time uncovering the implications and the mass killings perpetrated under their cloak of darkness?  As we look into forgiveness this week, perhaps that is the only direction we can go.  God help us move forward.