Article December 3, 1979 Issue

The Christ in you

CARL J. WELZ

Two men were walking through a market when one said: "There's no one looking. When we pass the fruit stand ahead, you reach out and grab us a couple of bananas." Just a few more steps and—then something inside him said, "No! It isn't right to steal, even a single piece of fruit." And he didn't.

What was this something inside him?

A boy had learned, from the time he was old enough to think of such things, that members of certain tribes were enemies. They were to be feared, hated, even killed if the opportunity occurred. Then he was sent to school, and the first day there he met a boy about his own age and discovered he was from an enemy tribe. But instead of fearing him and hating him, he felt he had found a friend. He thought to himself, "I forgive him for being an enemy." And he never thought of him as an enemy again.

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