stone

Two men where held as prisoners of war and they meet each other years later,
one says to the other 'have you forgiven our captors yet?'
the other says, 'no never, I hate them'
so the first one says 'well they still have you imprisoned dont they?'

We forgive for our own sake not for the sake of the person we forgive, in my opion.

stone

"Forgiveness is a form of realism. It doesn't deny, minimize, or justify what others have done to us or the pain that we have suffered. It encourages us to look squarely at those old wounds and see them for what they are. And it allows us to see how much energy we have wasted and how much we have damaged ourselves by not forgiving.
Forgiveness is an internal process. It can't be forced, and it doesn't come easy. It brings with it great feelings of wellness and freedom. But we experience this only when we want to heal and when we are willing to work for it.

Forgiveness is a sign of positive self-esteem. We no longer identify ourselves by our past injuries and injustices. We are no longer victims. We claim the right to stop hurting when we say, "I'm tired of the pain, and I want to be healed." At that moment, forgiveness becomes a possibility-although it may take time and much hard work before we finally achieve it.
Forgiveness is letting go of the past. It doesn't erase what happened, but it does allow us to lessen and perhaps even eliminate the pain of the past. The pain from our past no longer dictates how we live in the present, and it no longer determines our future.

It also means that we no longer need resentment and anger as an excuse for our shortcomings. We don't need them as a weapon to punish others nor as a shield to protect ourselves by keeping others away. And most importantly, we don't need these feelings to identify who we are. We become more than merely victims of our past.
Forgiveness is no longer wanting to punish those who hurt us. It is understanding that the anger and hatred that we feel toward them hurts us far more than it hurts them. It is seeing how we hide ourselves in our anger and how those feelings prevent us from healing. It is discovering the inner peace that becomes ours when we let go of the past and forget vengeance.
Forgiveness is moving on. It is recognizing all that we have lost because of our refusal to forgive. It is realizing that the energy that we spend hanging on to the past is better spent on improving our present and our future. It is letting go of the past so that we can move on.

We all have been hurt. And at one time or another most of us have made the mistake of trying to run away from the past. The problem is that no matter how fast or how far we run, the past always catches up to us-and usually at the most inopportune time. When we forgive, we are dealing with the past in such a way that we no longer have to run.
For me, learning how to forgive wasn't easy. But I did learn, and my life is better for it - even here on death row."

Michael B. Ross
Death Row
Somers, Connecticut.

Ananda

Stoney - you are my hero!

That is the best writing I've ever seen on forgivness. I am going to print it out and post it by my work station and in my bathroom.
:ghug3
Thank you so much

stone

It's great isnt it Ananda?

It helped me get over a pretty huge resentment I had.

sugErspun

I was re-watching a movie last night and something in it brought this thread to mind. The movie is 'Into The Wild' named after the non-fiction Krakauer book (of the same name). The following in italics is from that film (conversation between Chris and Ron)

Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch)

"I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships.

God’s place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience.

People just need to change the way they look at things."

Hal Holbrook (Ron Franz)

"Yeah. I am going to take stock of that.

You know I am.

They are both looking at the view from the top of the hill including the vista, the blue sky and the billowy cumulous clouds and the sunlight breaking through the clouds.

I want to tell you something.

From bits and pieces of what you have told me about your family, your mother and your dad …

And I know you have problems with the church too …

But there is some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate and it sounds to me you don’t mind calling it God.

But when you forgive, you love.

And when you forgive, God’s light shines through you."


It was pretty poignant part of the movie - and well described forgiveness and God and love and how they are all intertwined.

Just thought I would share.

~a

Done_With_It

I Loved that part.




*MOVIE SPOILER*




I also loved the fact that he thought he was so mad, and hated his Mom so much....
But in the end when he was dying, he was calling for "His Mom"...

Hmmm

LogCabin

I loved that movie, and Hal Holbrook's part so very much. I remember when the story was first put into a People magazine. So very sad. I loved what Sean Penn did with this story.