What Does Forgiveness Mean to You?

[Charles W. Thomas, Jr.]

Share your ideas about forgiveness. What does forgiveness mean to you? Is it telling someone who hurt you that it is ok for them to do what they did? Is it letting go of the grudge you have been holding for years? Most people have different views about forgiveness. Share yours here and see what other people have to say.

[Richard Howells]

For me, forgiveness is a practice of disengaging from our egoic concerns, enabling us to reconnect with Spirit and get into the flow of higher consciousness. Dealing with much of the messiness of being human can actually perpetuate pettiness, guilt and suffering. Connecting with Spirit/God/Divine/Source enables me/us to enter a realm of pure love, where there are no attacks or injuries, thus no guilt, no blame ... just the flow of God's love.

[Charles W. Thomas, Jr.]

Thank you for your insight Richard. As I read your comments, I realized that what you described is essentially how to live a spiritual life. So it follows that by setting an intention to live a spiritual life, you implicitly put yourself in a forgiving state. My working definition for forgiveness is to restore the flow of God's Love wherever It is missing.
Thanks so much for your participation.

[Charles W. Thomas, Jr.]

I just read a forgiveness article that I found very interesting. It is about Pope Benedict XVI's comments about child abuse in the Catholic Church. The title of the article is "To avoid victimhood, try forgiveness". I agree with the sentiment of the title, yet, although I think the article is well written and I enjoyed reading it, I am a little disturbed that it is a bit insensitive to the pain of the victims. What do you think?

As an advocate of forgiveness, I am in favor of supporting people in choosing forgiveness as an alternative to staying bound by their pain and negative emotions. So, how can we best do that compassionately? Here is the link for the article "To Avoid Victimhood, Try Forgiveness" by Dan Valenti http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_9063489?source=most_emailed#top

I am not sure of the permanance of the the above link, so let me know if it works for you.
Thanks,
Charles
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