Forgiveness requires a measure of forgetting

My minister, the Rev. Jimmie Hill, who is Black, told our congregation we not only needed to forgive but we haven’t really forgiven if we did not forget. When we do not forget, we continue to live in the past. Forgetting permits us to move forward. Forgetting is not about erasing history — it’s about refusing to let history bind our present and dictate our future.

Baltimore has endured racial tensions between Black and white Americans for decades. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. exemplified that forgiveness is not passive. It’s an active choice to confront injustice with love, fostering understanding and reconciliation even in the face of righteous anger (“Celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.” Jan. 11, 2024). While anger may be justified, unresolved anger can perpetuate cycles of division.

By forgiving and forgetting, Black Americans will be the role models and spiritual and political leaders God intended them to be in this exceptional country. It also empowers God to bring repentance into the hearts of us white Americans. Black hands and white hands can be joined together in prayer humbling “ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness,” as President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed in 1863.

Forgiving only comes with forgetting.

— Stanford Erickson, Baltimore

Correcting the record on Pelosi trip

Carol Anderson begins her recent letter to the editor by expressing her “concern” for the health of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi but goes on to wonder how official was the trip to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain (actually it was for the Battle of the Bulge) and on whose dime did they go (“Ill-fated Pelosi trip raises some questions,” Dec. 17).

A simple internet search will show the bipartisan delegation (yes, Democrats and Republicans) was sent at the direction of President Joe Biden and would therefore be paid by taxpayers. I certainly have no issue with my tax dollars being used to send a bipartisan Congressional delegation to celebrate the 80th anniversary of one of the most pivotal battles fought during World War II and to honor the American soldiers who fought and died in that battle.

I especially have no issue with honoring the courage and sacrifice of those soldiers since my father was one of them. I do hope the letter writer will continue to closely monitor possibly wasteful government spending in the next administration as well.

— Charles Huber, Bel Air

Tracing Chesapeake National Recreation Area to Phil Merrill’s desk

News that legislation creating a Chesapeake National Recreation Area was passed by the U.S. Senate takes me back to 1986 when the publisher of the Annapolis Capital (now Capital Gazette) Philip Merrill wrote an editorial first proposing a national park status for the Chesapeake Bay (“Senate unanimously passes Chesapeake National Recreation Area Act,” Dec. 18). I happened to be sitting in his Annapolis office as he, with characteristic intensity, pounded out the editorial on a beaten up Royal typewriter.

Merrill and another principal investor, Frank Batten, also then owned Baltimore Magazine of which I had been editor and general manager for a decade. Merrill, who was born here, lived by and sailed on the Chesapeake Bay and, ironically and tragically, died on its waters in 2006. He said his park idea was partially inspired by the citizen advocacy of people such as Arthur Sherwood of Baltimore who had led efforts to start the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Today, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s headquarters is named the Philip Merrill Environmental Center, saluting Phil’s philanthropy.

It has been 38 years since Phil wrote his national park editorial but, with today’s news, he and others who worked with him on the idea deserve credit for start-up advocacy.

— Stan Heuisler, Baltimore