{"id":5618,"date":"2026-07-31T09:13:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:13:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5618"},"modified":"2026-07-31T09:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T13:13:24","slug":"the-scariest-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/31\/the-scariest-word\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scariest Word"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast<\/em>,\u00a0click here<\/a>
\u00a0

What\u2019s the most unsettling word in the English language?

Etymologists have made plenty of suggestions.

Words like macabre, phantasmagoria<\/em>, and sinister<\/em> are somehow able to combine meaning, sound, and cultural associations to trigger a sense of fear. Horror expert Sydney Bermudez would add that words like uncanny, mimic<\/em>, and threshold<\/em> can generate a similar effect.

Then there\u2019s Ronald Reagan, who famously said that the nine words that ought to scare us to death are, \u201cI\u2019m from the government, and I\u2019m here to help.\u201d

Author Charles Williams offered a different take. When pondering the Lord\u2019s Prayer, he said, \u201cNo word in English carries a greater possibility of terror than the little word \u2018as\u2019 in that clause.\u201d

He meant the place where Jesus teaches us to pray, \u201cAnd forgive us our sins as<\/u><\/strong><\/em> we forgive those who have sinned against us.\u201d

So, does that mean we ask God to wipe our slates clean in proportion to, concurrently with, or in the same spirit as we clean the slates of others? That is scary, indeed.

Theologian Walter Wink once recounted what happened when a team of peacemakers sat down with Polish Christians a few years after World War II. Would they be willing to meet with a group of German Christians? The latter were intent on seeking forgiveness for the deep evil that had been unleashed in association with the war \u2013 a conflict in which the Polish people had been especially singled out for destruction.

Crickets<\/em>.

\u201cWhat you are asking is impossible,\u201d one of the Polish Christ-followers finally said. \u201cEach stone of Warsaw is soaked in Polish blood. We cannot forgive!\u201d

The meeting eventually ground toward an awkward finale. The peacemakers and Poles agreed to wrap things up by reciting together the Lord\u2019s Prayer.

When the voices of those present arrived at that \u201cas,\u201d silence once again fell upon the group. The Polish believers were devastated by the implications. One finally muttered, \u201cI must say to you\u2026I could no longer call myself a Christian if I refuse to forgive.\u201d

According to Wink, the Polish and German Christians met 18 months later in Vienna. They established a friendship that endured for the rest of their lives.

Every religion on the planet informs us that it makes sense to love people who will love us back.\u00a0

In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:43-48), Jesus says, “What’s so impressive about that?\u00a0Even the Mafia takes care of its own.\u00a0The real measure of spiritual maturity is choosing to love those who are intent on doing us wrong.\u201d He himself prayed for those who were aligned against him.\u00a0“Father, forgive them,\u201d he said from the cross.\u00a0

In the mind of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, that was proof positive that Jesus was clinically insane. Rational people do not forgive the people who are lynching them.\u00a0

According to most of America\u2019s foreign policy wonks and Hollywood screenwriters, the only realistic way to stop violence is with violence.\u00a0

Last January, when senior White House adviser Stephen Miller was challenged on that point by CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper, he said, \u201cWe live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.\u201d

Jesus, essentially, was challenging the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.

It\u2019s legitimate to say that the application of the Sermon on the Mount to international relationships is likely to be different from its application to personal relationships. But experience has shown that forgiveness at the personal level is often much harder.

The \u201cas\u201d in the Lord\u2019s Prayer may seem absurd.\u00a0Or useless. Or even offensive.\u00a0If it scares us, at least we know we have heard Jesus clearly.

What if I don\u2019t want to forgive someone?\u00a0

Then I must ask myself this question:\u00a0Do I at least <\/em>want<\/u><\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>to want to forgive?<\/em>

If so, then the hard but transforming work of forgiveness is already underway.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0 What\u2019s the most unsettling word in the English language? Etymologists have made plenty of suggestions. Words like macabre, phantasmagoria, and sinister are somehow able to combine meaning, sound, and cultural associations to trigger a sense of fear. Horror expert Sydney Bermudez would add that words like uncanny, mimic, and threshold can… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,80],"class_list":["post-5618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-forgiveness","tag-lords-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5620,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions\/5620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}