Seventy excuses

One of the great early Muslims, Hamdun al-Qassar, said, “If a friend among your friends errs, make seventy excuses for them.  If your hearts are unable to do this, then know that the shortcoming is in your own selves.”

I use this one a lot.

I love working in the community where the efforts of a group of people combine to create something greater than the sum of its parts.  But, as in any enterprise involving people, mistakes will be made.  The ball will be dropped (sometimes by me, which is another reason why I use it a lot).  And often, things will not go exactly as planned. 

When this happens, rather than attribute the error to malice, carelessness and disrespect, we make excuses for our friend.  We don't even need to make seventy.  I find once I get to two or three, I start feeling better already. 

I've always thought of this tradition as a good way of maintaining social relations.  And it is.  It keeps us from planting seeds of ill will against each other.  But besides that, it also helps us maintain a good emotional state within ourselves.  For as much as the way we see the world might affect how we treat other people, it really affects ourselves the most.

It's all good...

I heard this story in class once...

There was once an African king who had an adviser. The adviser was well known for his positive attitude. His favourite phrase was "It's all good..."

The king and his adviser were best friends. They were out hunting one day when the king's gun malfunctioned and there was a huge explosion.

"My adviser friend! I lost my thumb!" The king exclaimed, as blood gushed from his hand.

"It's all good..." the adviser replied, helping the king.

"How can you say that?! I just lost my thumb. You're so insensitive! I'm still your king, you know! If you weren't my best friend I would kill you! I sentence you to jail!"

The king sentenced his adviser to jail.

A year later, the king decided he would go hunting again. Alone. When he was in the jungle, he was ambushed and captured by cannibals. They took him to their village and prepared to sacrifice him. Before they could sacrifice him, they needed the priests to bless the sacrifice. When the priests inspected him, they were shocked to find that he was missing a thumb. This was a bad omen for them. The priests told the cannibals that their sacrifice was unsuitable so they released him.

The king was immensely relieved. And then he thought of his adviser friend and was overcome by guilt. He went directly to the dungeons himself, told his friend about the incident with the cannibals and released his friend from jail.

"I'm so sorry, dear friend," he said to his adviser.

"It's all good..." his friend replied.

"How can you say it's all good, you just lost a year of your life in jail because of me!" the king insisted.

"It's all good," the adviser replied "If I hadn't been in jail, they would have eaten me!"