Forgiveness: path to healing

There is nothing so bad that cannot be forgiven. Nothing!
Forgiveness is about letting go, really letting go of resentment and bitterness — both personal and global. Forgiveness requires strength of character, it requires courage, a courage that needs to be replenished daily and rekindled when it falters. Forgiveness requires a commitment to something other than revenge and the natural desire for retribution and/or an apology. It requires, since there are events and behaviors that are unforgivable, ultimate compassion. To forgive someone or something implies that there has been a transgression. You have been violated, hurt, insulted, treated badly or inhumanely, or somehow suffered greatly by another's actions. Something very valuable has been taken away; there has been grievous harm. Sometimes the transgression is factual; someone has been murdered, tortured, raped, neglected, beaten, publicly humiliated, or oppressed. Sometimes the transgression is subjective: we get our feelings hurt in ways that would not necessarily hurt someone else's feelings. Someone forgot your name at a party, your child was overlooked for a scholarship, someone assaulted your leadership style, or your boss did not pick up your ideas. We all have tucked away in our unconscious a little list of people who have hurt us in some way in our lives. And we keep the list even though they can no longer hurt us, as if forgiving them will give us amnesia, and we'll get hurt by them again.