蜜芽传媒

Yesterday, after four years of diplomatic stale-mate, the British Embassy in Tehran and the Iranian Embassy in London were both reopened. The negotiations which followed nuclear agreements between Iran and a coalition of 6 nations a few weeks ago, appear to mark a new era in relationships between President Hassan Rouhani and his international counterparts.

But these new developments are tainted with diplomatic uncertainties. As President Obama put it, the diplomatic package is not based on trust; it is based on verification.

The new agreement has not been agreeable to everyone. There are real concerns that the truce incentivized by commercial interests will turn out to be short-term gains with long term disaster.

No one can be certain about the cost of compromise. As the doors of diplomacy swing open, we must hope that new gateways of possibilities will also open up better stability in the region, and better prospects for the millions of young aspiring Iranians.

And we should also insist that this potential peace will mean religious freedom for the Baha鈥檌 community in Iran.

From our perspective, our nervousness about the future is tainted by our painful memories: embassy sieges, death fatwas, and kidnapping makes us cautious about the future.

But however hopeful we are about these pragmatic developments, what happened in London and Iran should not be confused with the reconciling of nations.

These are significant events but reconciliation goes much further.

Whether it happens between families, local communities or individuals, reconciliation is unconditional. It鈥檚 that - almost super-human ability - to neutralize past hurt by building a future on the rubble of bad memories. It鈥檚 the facility to measure the full weight of past atrocities against the benefits of a future based on hope. And reconciliation trades on the freedom to forgive and to be forgiven.

It salvages trust from the debris of broken promises and it monitors hope on a daily basis.

But like all pragmatic arrangements it works for practical benefits.

In the Christian tradition reconciliation is the moral of the story. And this idea repeats itself in the powerful biblical accounts of Joseph the Egyptian premier, reconciled with his brothers who sold him into slavery, and St Paul, once persecutor turned apostle of the Early Church.

And for Christians, reconciliation is expressed supremely in Christ who reconciles us to God in order that we too may become ambassadors of reconciliation.

The hope for our world is that these embassies of reconciliation are opening in our homes and communities more often than we will ever know.

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