Greetings dear friends! Recently I listened to a man recounting an incident that had led to a falling out with a friend he had known for thirty years. His sorrow and regret were palpable as he agonized over how to mend the wound that had opened up between them. "He won't even talk to me. How can I say I'm sorry?" If even this relatively benign infraction was so difficult to overcome, how much harder is it to forgive the unspeakable cruelties we humans inflict on each other and on the world around us? Yet how can we heal wounds without the grace of forgiveness?
"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"
Warm wishes, dear friends! In the blessed silence of prayer and meditation, inklings of a forgiveness not given, a resentment closely held, may well up. To recognize and heed such an impediment to wholeness through the eyes of Love can be a prod and catalyst for a humble step toward healing. For, as we forgive othrs, we find forgiveness for ourselves.
We nourish our souls when we continue to plant seeds of love wherever we go. When we let go of our negative thoughts and forgive ourselves and other people, that's like taking the weeds out of the garden and letting love blossom.
When two persons want reconciliation through forgiveness, the whole cosmos is involved, and the energy springing from forgiveness is released for other forms of service. Forgiveness releases love for service. Forgiveness makes possible a deeper communication than that which existed before. One can begin to see another reason why forgiveness is so important. Its importance is on the scale of evolution and it springs from the Creator of evolution. It invariably releases love , and love is the energy of creation.
When I have forgiven myself and remembered who I am, I will bless everyone and everything I see.
Choice is your greatest power ... even a greater power than love, because you must first choose to be a loving person. Take the example of someone apologizing to you for having spoken thoughtlessly or hurtfully. In that one instant the power of transformation rests entirely with you. You can gtranscend the density of your anger and choose to forgive, transmuting that instant into an exchange that restores energy to both of you. Or you can repress your divine nature and cause the potential opportunity for healing to become a contaminated energy transaction.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. The one who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a permanent attitude.
To become a teacher of Love, we need only be willing to hear Love's Voice and no other. Our responsibility is to let fear and guilt be undone in us, so that this Voice is clear within us. The light of heaven stands behind the veil of unforgiveness that we have drawn between ourselves and others; a dhadow waiting for forgiveness to remove it at last. The light of God is then freed to shine through the heart and extend out into the world.
I am content to follow to its source Every event in action or in thought; Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot. When such as I cast out remorse So great a sweetness flows into the breast. We must laugh and we must sing, We are blest by everything, Everything we look upon is blest.
~ from "A Dialogue of Self and Soul" by William Yeats
I used to think that forgiveness was a one-time and final act -- in one moment the pain subsides, and I say "I forgive," and it is over. But I have found that another day hidden memories spring forward from deep recesses of the mind and soul, and I must forgive again ... an ongoing project of the human soul.
