Posts: 5260
From: Venus next to Randall
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posted January 19, 2011 04:14 PM            

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Robert Frost

If one by one we counted people out

For the least sin, it wouldn't take us long

To get so we had no one left to live with.

For to be social is to be forgiving.

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From: Venus next to Randall
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posted January 19, 2011 04:15 PM            

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Seamus Heaney

Hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and
healing wells.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:16 PM            

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Holmgren

Seeing with better eyes "We can recognize that the offender
is a valuable human being who struggles with the same needs,
pressures, and confusions that we struggle with. We will recognize
that the incident really may not have been about us in the first place.
Instead it was about the wrongdoer’s misguided attempt to meet his
or her own needs.
As we regard offenders from this point of view
(regardless of whether they repent and regardless of what
they have done or suffered),
we will be in a position to forgive them.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:16 PM            

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Kauffman

The supreme act of courage is that of forgiving ourselves.
That which I was not but could have been.
That which I would have done but did not do.
Can I find the fortitude to remember in truth,
to understand, to submit, to forgive
and to be free to move on in time?

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posted January 19, 2011 04:17 PM            

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Martin Luther King

Forgiveness is not an occasional act. It is a permanent attitude.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:18 PM            

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Thomas Merton

We do not really know how to forgive until we know what it is to be forgiven.
Therefore we should be glad that we can be forgiven by others. It is our
forgiveness of one another that makes the love of Jesus manifest in our lives,
for in forgiving one another we act towards one another
as He has acted towards us

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posted January 19, 2011 04:19 PM            

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Hannah More

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart...forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred and the waste of spirits.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:20 PM            

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Reinhold Niebuhr

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful of good makes complete sense in any
immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
Therefore we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or
foe as from our own;
Therefore we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:20 PM            

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“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” Booker T. Washington

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posted January 19, 2011 04:21 PM            

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Henri Nouwen

It is freeing to become aware that we do not have to be victims of our past
and can learn new ways of responding. But there is a step beyond
this recognition... It is the step of forgiveness. Forgiveness is love
practiced among people who love poorly. It sets us free without
wanting anything in return

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posted January 19, 2011 04:21 PM            

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William Shakespeare

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the heart of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:22 PM            

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“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” ~Jesus – Matthew 7:3&5

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posted January 19, 2011 04:23 PM            

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Bishop Desmond Tutu

It is one of the things about forgiveness you have to remember. It is not
spiritual. It is part of real politics.

In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget. On the contrary, it is important to remember, so that we should not let such atrocities happen again. Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously...drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens our entire existence

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posted January 19, 2011 04:23 PM            

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“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back—in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.” Frederick Buechner

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posted January 19, 2011 04:23 PM            

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Jean Vanier

When we judge, we are pushing people away; we are creating a wall, a barrier. When we forgive we are destroying barriers, we come closer to others.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:24 PM            

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Marianne Williamson

Forgiveness does not mean that we suppress anger; forgiveness means that we have asked for a miracle: the ability to see through mistakes that someone has made to the truth that lies in all of our hearts. Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness. Attack thoughts towards others are attack thoughts towards ourselves. The first step in forgiveness is the willingness to forgive

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posted January 19, 2011 04:24 PM            

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“True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer. We have to accept that we do what we do for generations past, present and yet to come. That is what makes a community a community or a people a people—for better or for worse.” Desmond Mpilo Tutu, excerpted from No Future Without Forgiveness

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posted January 19, 2011 04:25 PM            

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Dan Zadra

Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success. Always be the first to forgive; and forgive yourself first always.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:25 PM            

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“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them, and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.” The Big Book, Alcoholics Anonymous

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posted January 19, 2011 04:27 PM            

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"Forgiving is love's toughest work, and love's biggest risk. If you twist it into something it was never meant to be, it can make you a doormat or an insufferable manipulator. Forgiving seems almost unnatural. Our sense of fairness tells us people should pay for the wrong they do. But forgiving is love's power to break nature's rule."
Lewis B. Smedes

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posted January 19, 2011 04:28 PM            

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“When we harbor negative emotions toward others or toward ourselves, or when we intentionally create pain for others, we poison our own physical and spiritual systems. By far the strongest poison to the human spirit is the inability to forgive oneself or another person. It disables a person’s emotional resources. The challenge…is to refine our capacity to love others as well as ourselves and to develop the power of forgiveness.” Caroline Myss, PH.D., excerpted from Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing

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posted January 19, 2011 04:28 PM            

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Forgiveness
Is the mightiest sword
Forgiveness of those you fear
Is the highest reward
When they bruise you with words
When they make you feel small
When it's hardest to take
You must do nothing at all...

- Jane Eyre.

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posted January 19, 2011 04:29 PM            

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If I cannot forgive myself
For all the blunders
That I have made
Over the years,
Then how can I proceed?
How can I ever
Dream perfection-dreams?
Move, I must, forward.
Fly, I must, upward.
Dive, I must, inward,
To be once more
What I truly am
And shall forever remain.

- Sri Chinmoy

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posted January 19, 2011 04:29 PM            

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“Forgiveness is not the misguided act of condoning irresponsible, hurtful behavior. Nor is it a superficial turning of the other cheek that leaves us feeling victimized and martyred. Rather, it is the finishing of old business that allows us to experience the present, free of contamination from the past.” Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., excerpted from Fire In The Soul: A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism

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posted January 19, 2011 04:30 PM            

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You will set yourself free from all you thought they did to you. They need not ask for forgiveness to be forgiven. They might even believe that there is nothing for which they need to be forgiven. That is fine. Do not concern yourself with how they choose to experience reality, for it has no effect on you, unless you allow it to. For something or someone to affect you, you must first allow it to affect you.

- James Blanchard Cisneros

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