I now realize, God, how much you have given me. So much that was beautiful and so much that was hard to bear. Yet, whenever I showed myself ready to bear it, the hard was directly transformed into the beautiful.
Etty Hillesum
Spiritual practice always entails forgiveness at least as long as there is even one person we can't forgive. But real forgiveness is not some form of magnanimous acceptance of others "even though they did us wrong." Rather, with true forgiveness we loosen the grip on our treasured resentment. Often the most difficult part of forgiving another is facing the fact that we don't actually want to forgive them. Yet the process of forgiveness also requires that we experience, within ourselves, the fact that we are not so different from those we are so ready to judge. Experiencing this shared pain of humanity the realization that all of us are acting out of protectedness and fear allows forgiveness to come forth on its own.
Ezra Bayda
What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality.
–Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing
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