Quotes About Forgiveness
Long Quotes
How can you see the need for [the process of unburdening] until you have seen again and again the debilitating effects of being bound to old ideas, old relationships, old interests and old activities that no longer represent you. You must see the effects of having your memory cast over you like a great shadow--darkening your skies, haunting you, hounding you and following you wherever you go. You can forgive these things because you can release them. If you cannot release them, you cannot forgive them. What is forgiveness but release? How can you release something if you are still holding onto it? The only way to release something is to go where it is not needed, where you cannot take it with you and where it has no relevance and no importance.
- Greater Community Spirituality, chap. 13, p. 156
Real forgiveness is a process of transforming something old into something new, something that was useless into something that is useful, something that is meaningless into something that is meaningful. Here your mistakes, instead of being a source of pain and inner discomfort for you, become a means of reaching other people, for everyone has made mistakes, and many people have made the same ones that you have. This becomes a way to reach people. "I made this mistake. This is what I learned. And this is what I am doing with it now." What a beautiful teaching this is. How gracious this is and how important it is for the listener and for the communicator as well.
- Living the Way of Knowledge (Chapter 2, The Four Pillars of Life)