A real life cuckoo atones for his past and asks forgiveness

I read with curiosity a story in The Baltimore Sun last Sunday morning about a man who has deep regrets about his racists’ past.
His life and character would easily fit into my new novel, The Cry of the Cuckoos. The theme of my novel is deceit and forgiveness and that’s what Elwin Hope Wilson of South Carolina has been doing as he struggles with his own mortality. He has repented for his past sins and asked for forgiveness from the people – blacks – he has harmed in one way or another most of his life.
Now that he is 72-years-old, ill with diabetes, his eyes degenerating, Wilson wants to atone for his misgivings.
“The former Ku Klux Klan supporter says he wants to atone for the cross burnings on Hollis Lake Road. He wants to apologize for hanging a black doll in a noose at the end of his drive, for flinging cantaloupes at black men walking down Main Street, for hurling a jack handle at the black kid jiggling the soda machine in his father's service station, for brutally beating a 21-year-old seminary student at the bus station in 1961,” the newspaper reported.
Sound familiar?
Wilson is a clock collector, and his life has been ticking away with the burden of racism for many years. Among his collections in his home is a cuckoo clock. I was mesmerized by the story because the characters in my book could have been Mr. Wilson.
In the final chapter of his life, Wilson is seeking forgiveness. The burly clock collector wants to be saved before he hears his last chime.
And so Wilson has spent recent months apologizing to "the people I had trouble with." “He has embraced black men his own age, at the same lunch counter where once they were denied service and hauled off to jail as mobs of white youths, Wilson among them, threw insults and eggs and fists.
”Wilson has carried his apology into black churches where he has unburdened it in prayer.
”And he has taken it to Washington, to the office of Congressman John Lewis of Atlanta, the civil rights leader whose face Wilson smashed at the Greyhound bus station during the famed Freedom Rides 48 years ago.
”The apologies have won headlines and praise. Letters have poured in, lauding Wilson's courage. Strangers, black and white, have hailed him as a hero.
”But Wilson doesn't feel like a hero. He feels confused. He cannot fully answer the lingering questions, the doubts. Where did all the hate come from? And where did it go?
And the question he gets asked most often: Why now?
"All I can say is that it has bothered me for years, all the bad stuff I've done," Wilson said. "And I found out there is no way I could be saved and get to heaven and still not like blacks."
”If you do get to heaven, his wife pointed out, they're going to be there with you.”
Mr. Wilson has found a secret ingredient to his life now. His regrets and weight of the past has given him the freedom to be a real person.
There is a lesson in his story.
Holding onto regret is like dragging the weight of the past with us everywhere we go. It drains our energy, leaving less available for life in the present because we are constantly feeding an old issue. This attachment can cause illness the same way watering a dead plant creates decay. We know that something new and beautiful can grow in its place if we only prepare the soil and plant the right seeds.
We also know that we create our lives from our thoughts, so dwelling on the past may actually recreate a situation in our lives where we are forced to make the choice again and again. We can choose to move on right now by applying what we have learned to the present and perhaps even sharing with others, transforming the energy into something that is constructive and creative for ourselves and others.
Forgiveness is the soothing balm that can heal regret. In meditation, we can imagine discussing the issue with the self of our past and offering our forgiveness for the choice. In return, we can ask for our selves’ forgiveness for keeping them locked in that space of judgment for so long.
We may also want to ask forgiveness from anyone else who may have been affected and perhaps offer our forgiveness. By replaying the event in our minds, we can choose a new ending using all that we now know.
Imagine that you have actually gone back into the past and made this change, and then say goodbye to it. Release your former self with a hug and bring the forgiveness and love back with you to the present. Since we are usually our harshest critics, it is amazing how powerfully healing it can be to offer ourselves love.
Keeping our minds and our energy fully in the present allows us to fuel our physical and emotional healing and well-being today. This action frees our energy to create the dreams we dream for the future. By taking responsibility and action in the present, we can release our hold on the past.

John W. Cargile, Msc.D, D.D. is a licensed pastoral psychology counselor. He is a member of the National Educational Association and Alabama Educational Association. He is the author of a new novel, The Cry of the Cuckoos www.thecryofthecuckoos.com You can contact him at jwcargile@charter.net. All conversations are confidential.