None is born wicked

One way of neutralising anger against persons who may have wronged or 'used' you is to comprehend that none is born wicked. Just as fortune is fickle, so is fate cruel, as it hardens even the most gentle souls. They would, indeed, have been better if only situations and conditioning around them had also been different.

This concept is illustratedby a moving story, The Faceof Judas Iscariot, which appeared in Reader's Digestin April 1963.

A great artist was once engaged to paint a mural for a cathedral. Two important figures needed were those of the Christ child and Judas Iscariot. He obtained easily a model for the Christ child - a 12-year-old boy, whose face was like an angel. After several sittings, this painting was done.

However, the artist searched for many years thereafter for a model for Judas Iscariot - "a man, warped by life, enfeebled by surrender to greed and lust". All who had offered to pose had, on their faces, at least a trace of goodness.

Fearing that his life search would go in vain, he continued his search, when one day, he did come across a 'gaunt and tattered figure', which 'seemed to bear the marks of every sin of mankind'.

The painter took this man to his home and started to paint. After several days' of work on this painting, a change came over the model, who sobbed as he stared at the painted likeness of himself. On being asked by the artist as to what troubled him, the model cried, "Do you not remember me? Years ago, I was your model for the Christ child."

Strange are the quirks of fate, which works its ways insidiously upon persons!