The Traveler's Gift

by Andy Andrews

  “If we familiarize ourselves with the chains of bondage, we prepare our own limbs to wear them. The spirit of our government and our institutions must be to elevate people, and I am opposed to whatever degrades them. I am of the opinion that right makes might. Therefore, I signed the document, and now we will enforce its effectiveness.

  “So your question was, ‘Do I believe that God is on our side?’ To be quite honest, I haven’t given that question very much attention. I am much more concerned with whether we are on God’s side.”

  David remembered something Lincoln had said earlier. “You mentioned Grant,” he prompted. “Why will he make such a difference?”

  “Because he cares as I do!” came the sharp reply. “It has taken me almost three years to find a general officer whom I don’t have to watch over like a nursemaid. Winfield Scott was my first general in chief. Then McDowell, followed by Fremont, then the disastrous McClellan. Can you imagine? In McClellan, I had a commander of the entire Union army who refused to engage the enemy!

  “After McClellan, I appointed Henry Halleck. Halleck is a graduate of West Point and has even written a book on military tactics. I read it last year before his appointment. Fine book, good theory, but books don’t fight wars. The man evaded all personal responsibility, lost what little composure he brought to the task, and became nothing more than a first-rate clerk.

  “McClernand was next, and all he did was complain about the other generals. It was the odd week I didn’t receive a long, rambling communication critical of something Sherman or Grant had done. After McClernand, I suffered through Rosecrans, then Burnside, and finally Nathaniel P. Banks.

  “Naturally, the day I announced my intentions to promote General Grant, I was vilified in the press. Actually, many people have been pushing for Grant’s dismissal, but I can’t spare this man. He fights! I’ve heard it said that he drinks too much. Well, if I can find out exactly what he’s drinking, I’ll send a few cases to the other generals!”

  David laughed at that comment. Lincoln smiled and continued, “I suppose the point of all this is that Ulysses S. Grant wants to win as badly as I do. If you are determined to win, you will have to surround yourself with winners. Don’t be discouraged by the people you might choose for your team who talk big but produce little. Grant is my tenth try. I just keep putting them in the boat to see who wants to paddle as hard as I do.”

  “What will you do if . . . when you win?” David asked.

  “Do you mean, where will I lead this nation?”

  “Yes. After the war, what will be your first priority?”

  “That is rather an easy question to answer. In fact, I have spent many hours in prayerful consideration of my response. The first morning after all hostilities cease, I will greet the day with a forgiving spirit.”

  David was stunned. “How can you? I do not understand!”

  “It’s a very simple concept actually, and it is the single most important action I take on a regular basis. Forgiveness allows me to be an effective husband, father, friend, and leader of this country.”

  Confused, David asked, “What does forgiveness have to do with being effective?”

  Lincoln thought for a moment, crossed his legs, and answered. “Have you ever been so angry or upset with someone that all you could think of was that person and the horrible way you’d been treated? You think about him when you should be sleeping, and all the things you should have said or would like to say come to mind. When you could be enjoying an evening with your family, your children aren’t foremost in your thoughts. That person who offended you is receiving all your energy. You feel as if you might explode.” Leaning forward, he asked, “Have you ever felt this way?”

  “Yes.” David nodded. “I have.”

  Lincoln relaxed back in his chair and uncrossed his legs. “Well, so have I. I owe business failures, marital strife, and defeats in several political races to those very feelings. But I also owe a great deal of the success I enjoy to the discovery of this simple secret.”

  “What secret?” David asked.

  “The secret of forgiveness,” Lincoln responded. “It is a secret that is hidden in plain sight. It costs nothing and is worth millions. It is available to everyone and used by few. If you harness the power of forgiveness, you will be revered, sought after, and wealthy. And not coincidentally, you will also be forgiven by others!”

  David looked puzzled. “Just who is it that I am supposed to forgive?”

  “Everyone.”

  “But what if they don’t ask for forgiveness?”

  Lincoln raised his dark eyebrows and smiled. “Most will not! Amazingly, many of these dastardly people who dare to occupy our minds with angry thoughts are actually wandering about in life without any knowledge of our feelings or any conviction that they have done anything wrong!”

  David frowned. “I’m sure that’s all true, but I still don’t understand how you can forgive someone who doesn’t ask for forgiveness!”

  “You know,” Lincoln began, “for many years, I thought forgiveness was akin to a knighthood—something I bestowed upon some poor wretch who groveled at my feet and begged my blessings. But as I matured and observed successful people, I gained a new perspective on forgiveness.

  “I cannot recall a single book, including the Holy Bible, that says in order for you to forgive someone, he or she has to ask for it. Think about this concept! Where is the rule written that before I forgive people, they have to deserve it? Where is it written that to be forgiven by me, you must have wronged me no more than three times? Or seven? Or seventeen?

  “The unmistakable truth about forgiveness is that it is not a reward that must be earned; forgiveness is a gift to be given. When I give forgiveness, I free my own spirit to release the anger and hatred harbored in my heart. By granting forgiveness, I free my spirit to pursue my future happily and unencumbered by the anchors of my past. And forgiveness, when granted to others, becomes a gift to myself.”

  David nodded slowly. “I guess I never considered forgiveness to be something under my control.”

  Just then, cheers and a long, sustained ovation began outside. The president pulled a pocket watch from his vest and said, “I expect that will be the end of Mr. Everett. Well, not much longer now.”

  David stood up.

  “Sit back down for a moment, son,” Lincoln commanded gently. David did so.

  “David, you are at a critical point in your life’s race, and there exists a person to whom your forgiveness has been withheld for far too long. By the limited authority I have been granted as your host for this short time, I must now warn you that without a forgiving spirit, your effectiveness as a husband, a father, and a leader of people will be at an end. The key to everything your future holds, the touchstone that will, for you, bring dreams into reality, is forgiveness.”

  David’s mouth was open, and a look of confusion and faint astonishment was written in his eyes. “Who is it?” he said. Lincoln merely looked at him. “Sir? Who is it?”

  Lincoln stood up and brushed off the front of his jacket and pants. David stood up and said, “Mr. President, you have to tell me who it is!” Lincoln picked up the glass of water and drained the contents. He stepped toward the door, and David put his hand on Lincoln’s arm. “Listen!” David said. “You’re about to go out there, and I’ll never see you again. You as much as said my life would be over if I did not forgive this person. So if it’s that important, tell me! Who must I forgive?”

  The president looked carefully into David’s eyes and said simply, “Yourself.”

  Tears formed in David’s eyes, and he shook his head. Softly, he said, “I didn’t think . . .”

  “David,” Lincoln said as he placed his hands on the younger man’s shoulders, “your wife is not mad at you. Your child is not mad at you. Your friends, of which I am one, are not mad at you, and God is not mad at you. So, David . . . ,” Lincoln stopped briefly and said with a smile, “don’t you be mad at you. Forgive yourself.
Begin anew.”

  “Thank you,” David said as he wiped his eyes on his shirt-sleeve.

  “I am honored to have been of assistance,” Lincoln said. Picking up his hat from the desk, he asked, “Would you care to follow me out? You could join the crowd and listen if you wish.”

  “That would be great,” David said. “Thanks! By the way, I’m sorry I took up all your preparation time here in the tent.”

  “No problem at all,” the president responded. “I’ve been ready with these remarks for about two weeks.”

  “Really? You know, that’s fascinating. When people study you now, or . . . ahh, in the future, one of the things we were all taught is that you wrote this particular speech on the train into Gettysburg.”

  Lincoln smiled. “No, I wrote the dedication for today back in Washington. I suppose the situation could have been easily confused because I was writing on the train into Gettysburg. In fact . . . ,” Lincoln took a piece of paper from the inside band of his stovepipe hat and presented it to David, “I was writing this for you.”

  David smiled and followed Lincoln to the door. The choir was singing a hymn, and inside the tent, the two men could hear the sounds of twenty thousand people shifting and stretching. Lincoln ducked to go through the door and then, suddenly, he stopped. Turning and straightening to face David, he had a quizzical expression on his face. “You say people study me in the future?”

  “Yes, sir,” David answered.

  Lincoln lowered his voice and narrowed his eyes. “Just between you and me, we do win this war, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a sly smile on his face and one raised eyebrow, he added one last question. “Grant?”

  David grinned. “Yes, sir,” he said and followed the great man from the tent.

  Outside, David fell back as John Hay and several soldiers immediately surrounded the president and whisked him toward the stage. Lincoln shook hands with Edward Everett, who had remained nearby to hear the president. The choir had finished and left the stage when an emcee, dressed in a fine black tuxedo, approached the podium and sang out, “Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln.”

  With that announcement, twenty thousand people rose to their feet and cheered. David squeezed around to the front of the stage and stood with everyone else. As the applause died, they remained standing. David was just to the right and under his friend when, in a high-pitched, almost shrill voice, Abraham Lincoln spoke the words that would begin the healing of a broken nation:

  “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation—or any nation so conceived and so dedicated— can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

  “But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us— that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

  For a moment, the crowd stood silent. Then all around him, David heard people begin to applaud. Joining them enthusiastically, he watched as Lincoln nodded to the crowd, acknowledging their appreciation, and then waved to the people farthest from the stage. Looking below him, he caught David’s gaze and smiled. He then waved to the audience once more, turned, and was gone.

  David picked his way through the people and walked to a large beech tree standing alone on the gentle slope of a hill. He was away from the thousands of people as he sat down in the shade of the tree. Hearing the voices of the choir as they sang another hymn from the stage, David unfolded the paper given to him by the sixteenth president of the United States and read.

  THE SIXTH DECISION FOR SUCCESS

  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.

  For too long, every ounce of forgiveness I owned was locked away, hidden from view, waiting for me to bestow its precious presence upon some worthy person. Alas, I found most people to be singularly unworthy of my valuable forgiveness, and since they never asked for any, I kept it all for myself. Now, the forgiveness that I hoarded has sprouted inside my heart like a crippled seed yielding bitter fruit.

  No more! At this moment, my life has taken on new hope and assurance. Of all the world’s population, I am one of the few possessors of the secret to dissipating anger and resentment. I now understand that forgiveness has value only when it is given away. By the simple act of granting forgiveness, I release the demons of the past about which I can do nothing, and I create in myself a new heart, a new beginning.

  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive even those who do not ask for forgiveness.

  Many are the times when I have seethed in anger at a word or deed thrown into my life by an unthinking or uncaring person. I have wasted valuable hours imagining revenge or confrontation. Now I see the truth revealed about this psychological rock inside my shoe. The rage I nurture is often one-sided, for my offender seldom gives thought to his offense!

  I will now and forevermore silently offer my forgiveness even to those who do not see that they need it. By the act of forgiving, I am no longer consumed by unproductive thoughts. I give up my bitterness. I am content in my soul and effective again with my fellowman.

  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive those who criticize me unjustly.

  Knowing that slavery in any form is wrong, I also know that the person who lives a life according to the opinion of others is a slave. I am not a slave. I have chosen my counsel. I know the difference between right and wrong. I know what is best for the future of my family, and neither misguided opinion nor unjust criticism will alter my course.

  Those who are critical of my goals and dreams simply do not understand the higher purpose to which I have been called. Therefore, their scorn does not affect my attitude or action. I forgive their lack of vision, and I forge ahead. I now know that criticism is part of the price paid for leaping past mediocrity.

  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit. I will forgive myself.

  For many years, my greatest enemy has been myself. Every mistake, every miscalculation, every stumble I made has been replayed again and again in my mind. Every broken promise, every day wasted, every goal not reached has compounded the disgust I feel for the lack of achievement in my life. My dismay has developed a paralyzing grip. When I disappoint myself, I respond with inaction and become more disappointed.

  I realize today that it is impossible to fight an enemy living in my head. By forgiving myself, I erase the doubts, fears, and frustration that have kept my past in the present. From this day forward, my history will cease to control my destiny. I have forgiven myself. My life has just begun.

  I will forgive even those who do not ask for forgiveness. I will forgive those who criticize me unjustly. I will forgive myself.

  I will greet this day with a forgiving spirit.

  NINE

  DAVID DUG THE TOBACCO POUCH OUT OF HIS pocket. Carefully, he folded the paper and placed it inside the worn canvas. His hand brushed the smooth skin on which King Solomon had w
ritten the Second Decision. “One, two, three, four, five, six.” David counted the precious pages aloud. I’m supposed to receive seven, he thought. Where will I go next?

  David was tense. Waiting for the experience of leaping across time and space had left him nervous and exhausted. As he looked across the field, he saw Lincoln’s party leaving the cemetery on horseback. The president, with his white gauntlets and tall black hat shining in the sunlight, cut a dashing figure. David smiled and shook his head in wonder.

  Feelings of weariness overcame David. Unable to keep his eyes open, he put the pouch back in his pocket and lay down. He tried to stay awake and was scared to fall asleep, but he couldn’t fight it. Visions of Ellen and Jenny swept over him. “Where are you, Daddy?” Jenny cried. “Come home!” It was a dream, David knew, but he couldn’t wake up. He tried to touch them, but they were just out of his reach. This is crazy, David thought. I’m having a dream in the middle of a dream. I have to wake up!

  Ellen stood with her hands on her sobbing daughter’s shoulders, comforting the child. “David, we need you,” she said.

  Wake up! David screamed at himself.

  “I’m expecting great things from you, son.” It was a man’s voice. David swung around to see his father-in-law. There were tears in his eyes. “You promised me you’d take care of my daughter.”

  David woke up drenched in sweat. He was nauseated but terrified of closing his eyes again. “Too real,” he mumbled to himself as he sat up. “That was too real.” Disoriented, David saw that he was on a concrete floor surrounded by . . . paper?

  Sitting up straight, he rubbed his eyes as his senses cleared. Directly in front of him was more paper. David rolled to his knees and got to his feet. He saw that these were not ordinary pieces of white paper but photographs. And every photograph was of a child. There were banded stacks of photographs placed neatly on shelf after shelf after shelf. Three big baskets holding hundreds of loose photographs stood at the bottom of one row as if waiting to be filed. These were pictures of children of all ages and colors. There were two children in some photographs and just one in many more. David saw others had three children or four, and a few held five or six.