So Who is Gill Hicks?
Gill was an Australian woman living in London in 2005 when she got on the tube on the Piccadilly Line on her way to work. It was just another day and she was on the way to the office. On this particular day amazingly and weirdly, she was running late. Gill never ran late but that morning she had a blazing row with her fiancé and she was determined to give him the flick and begin a new life. She was banging drawers to try and wake him up and it meant that she took a scarf to wear which crucially would later save her life.
In the crowded carriage, she was standing close to Jermaine Lindsay who was carrying a bomb. Only one person was separating her from Jermaine. In effect, he saved her life with his own body even though he didn’t plan it that way over his cereal that morning. Later Jill would meet this man’s wife who said
“If this is the last thing he did with his life to save mine, then what a wonderful thing he's done in his last moments.”
As the bomb was detonated, she felt as though she was being enveloped in inky blackness.
In the explosion, Gill lost both her legs, as she waited for help to come, she made a contract with herself to survive. But she says, she wasn't fully aware of the 'fine print’.
After an hour in the dark, she was rescued and on the way to the hospital, she experienced clinical death several times, and had to be resuscitated.
During this time Gill heard two insistent voices in her head: one was female, inviting her to surrender into the peace of death. The other voice was male, and it was demanding that she choose to live.
This is where the wonderful scarf came in “because I still had the scarf on and calmly managed to tie tourniquets around the tops of my legs. And I knew that I was in a very, very, very serious situation. But, there was a girl across from me saying, you know, what's your name and what do you do?" and trying to keep each other awake.”
From the start of her recovery, she was determined not to dwell on hate or revenge. Instead, Gill became close friends with the many police officers and medical staff who saved her life. She says the love she received from complete strangers is much more important to her than the hateful attack on herself and her fellow passengers.
Later Jill would say that I received unconditional love from strangers. That is why I don't feel any hatred; it's too precious. What I've been given back is too precious to allow the cancerous nature of hatred and bitterness to decay my life.
I would say I'm angry and I think that's okay. But equally, it's the anger that gets me up in the morning to say, what am I going to do about it?”
We now know a fair bit about the bomber on your train. He was a troubled 19-year-old who'd fallen under the influence of a bad mind. Many people wouldn't see him as troubled and wouldn't want to say he was wicked. Jill had this to say about the bomber.
“I'd like to believe, and this is again, you know, he's dead. And so we can only ever presume what he thought. And I'm very cautious of making presumptions because on that morning, he presumed a hell of a lot of things about me. He presumed I was his enemy and he never asked me. I never had a choice.
So I don't want to presume too much about him, but the space that I like to think about with him and indeed what he symbolises is that there is a passion to the crime and that these are people that are wanting to make a difference, albeit in a very misguided way. So it's how do we highlight that... The killing of innocent lives, an eye for an eye doesn't make a situation better.
I feel a great pity for him and pity is perhaps the only emotion I can offer him as he's not here.
I thought about, you know, how this happens, how anyone could feel justified in that type of attack. Indeed, how common this attack is throughout the world and a source of terrorism is a very effective source of getting people to sit up and listen and take notice. And I thought about how do I end this because I'm just one person. So what I can do is... I can... Actually stop an idea of a cycle of this continuing, of wanting retribution. So how can I reverse that cycle and in fact go out and do the complete opposite?
There has to be a line that is drawn. It is not ‘us’ and ‘them’. It stops here.”
Our Master Teacher put this way
“But to you who are listening, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
Love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High.”