Jennifer's Favourite Readings in Forgiveness

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
...You cannot force yourself to forgive. Only when you understand what has happened can you have compassion for the other person and forgive him or her. That kind of forgiveness is the fruit of awareness. When you are mindful, you can see the many causes that led the other person to make you suffer, and when you see this, forgiveness and release arise naturally.”

Thich Nhat Hanh, from Living Buddha, Living Christ (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995)

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

Mark Twain

“It may be infinitely worse to refuse to forgive than to murder, because the latter may be an impulse of a moment of heat, whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.”

George MacDonald

“In our own lives, when the time comes for us to move beyond an old way of thinking and to give up perceptions that no longer serve our growth, we frequently experience the signal to ‘take up our bed and walk’ as an act of betrayal — a Judas kiss... When you experience an apparent act of betrayal, look closely to see if it may not actually be a ‘Divine invitation’ to let go of the old and discover the new. We will all have Judas experiences. But seen through the lens of higher consciousness, they turn out to be powerful turning points in our lives that can introduce us to an entirely new form of power — the power of the Individual self. From that point of view, the words of Jesus — ‘Forgive them, for they know not what they do’ — are especially meaningful. Ponder the possibility that you may have already agreed, in your own garden of Gethsemane, to move forward, but you needed a push to get going. The people who may seem, at the Tribal level, to be participating in an act of betrayal are, in truth, acting out an agreement you have already made with God. How then, can you be angry at one of the Lord’s messengers? There is nothing for which you need to forgive them, for they have done nothing at all to harm you.”

Caroline Myss, Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can (New York: Three Rivers Press, 1997) pp. 80-82

“As seed making begins with the wounding of the ovum by the sperm, so does soulmaking begin with the wounding of the psyche by the Larger Story. Soulmaking requires that you die to one story to be reborn to a larger one. A renaissance, a rebirth, occurs not just because there is a rising of ancient and archetypal symbols. A renaissance happens because the soul is breached.

“...So, too, is your wounding an invitation to your renaissance. Our woundings tell us that old forms are ready to die, however reluctant the local self may be to allow this to occur, and that hitherto unsuspected new forms are ready to flower.

“...An abundance of sacred wounding marks the core of all great Western myths and their attending gods and humans: Adam’s rib, Achilles’ heel...Job’s boils, Jacob’s broken hip...Persephone’s rape... Oedipus’s blinding, Jesus’ crucifixion. All of these myths of wounding carry with them the uncanny, the mysterious, the announcement that the sacred is entering into time. Each prefigures a journey, a renaissance, a birth or rebirth, a turning point in the lives of gods and mortals.”

Jean Houston, The Search for the Beloved (Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc., 1987) pp. 115-117

“Look back over your life and note the holy and evolutionary qualities of betrayal. You will remember that trust and betrayal always contain each other. Therefore, it was the close relationships that more often than not carried the fullest agony of betrayal: betrayal by the parents who did not fulfill their promises; betrayal by the lover who finds another; betrayal by the child who never calls home; betrayal by the close professional associate who abandons the dream or project you had together. Betrayals mark the expulsion from our Eden of complete trust into the empirical but evolutionary world of consciousness, growth, autonomy, and responsibility. We only really begin to grow when, through betrayal, we lose our sense of intimate linkage with the other — be it mother, father, family or friend, profession or ideology — and are thrust out into an unprotected existence.

“....Time reveals the Larger Story, hidden to primal consciousness, in which we must play a part. Looking back at your own betrayals, you may notice how they have given you the necessary shove, the unwelcome but needed kick in the pants to invite you to get on with it, to release patterns and attachments that need to die, so that the world may be grown again and a deep and conscious trust may be born.

“But the key to redeeming our betrayals is forgiveness. Anyone can forgive a petty matter, but if you have been involved in a situation of deep trusting, of mutual flowing into one another, of rich coherence in which you have shared your soul — and then have been betrayed — forgiveness takes on a momentous and evolutionary potency. Such a forgiveness will allow you to return to the Garden after the gaining of complexity and to enter into fully conscious partnership with the creative principle. When the forgiveness is fully known, you can recognize the betrayer as the instrument of the Larger Story.”

Houston, Search for the Beloved, pp. 115-117

“....the only way to be ennobled and to forgive truly is through love. In giving much more than one thought one could, one discovers that one has much more still to give. This is the mystery and miracle of love, and it changes the very fabric of reality, the very structure of our lives. When we are able to give forth, to give of ourselves beyond our protective shell and see the other in wonder and astonishment (regardless of how unskilled the other’s behavior might have been), then something evolutionary happens and we and the betrayal are not the same. Then love is restored, revealing the larger consequence and the deeper unfolding.”

Houston, Search for the Beloved, p. 117

“Forgiveness is a complex transaction that reasserts the power and equality of those who have been injured or abused.”

Jeremiah Creedon, “To Hell and Back.” Review of Between Vengeance and Forgiveness, by Martha Minow, Utne Reader Online, May 1999.

“Forgiveness brings order to your mind because it is the commitment to see everything — pain or pleasure, love or hatred, disaster or victory — in terms of the healing potential within. This decision is the key to a deep, abiding happiness that can sustain you through all your passing sadnesses.”

“Forgiveness blossoms at a certain moment in time, when you are ripe and ready to release some of the dead past. It is the intent to forgive that actually speeds up time, collapsing old schedules of suffering and bringing unimagined possibilities inestimably nearer.”

“Forgiveness is not mere sympathy, nor condescension, nor forced generosity. It is the ultimate declaration of equality, founded on the recognition that all crimes are the same crime, every failing the human failing, and every insult a cry for help.”

“To find your missing creativity, release a little of your attachment to the worst injury ever done to you. Grieve the deadness that you are letting go, and that you have so long regarded as a trophy wound. Then celebrate the opening of a door through which your childlike nature can come back to you, laughing , asking the simplest questions, clearing your vision.”

D. Patrick Miller, A Little Book of Forgiveness (New York: Viking, 1994).