Rick Morton : On forgiveness

There is love in that ministry of forgiveness, though it does not travel the way we think. When we love ourselves first, we can then forgive others. There is a recognition that to do otherwise would be to stoke the coals of hate, which is itself an abuse against existing hurt. Hate is oxygen to the fires of pain. It is both source and sustenance.

The wound is real. Whether it is physical, emotional or psychic, the wound is real, so is the hurt. Accept this.

It happened. The thing cannot be undone, in the same way an egg cannot be unscrambled, nor the bread unbaked.. The thing cannot be reversed.

The poet David Whyte writes in his book Consolations, forgiveness can change our relationship to it.

Forgiveness is a heartache and difficult to achieve, because, strangely it refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us closer to its source.

To approach forgiveness is to close in on the nature of the hurt itself, the only remedy being, as we approach to raw center, to reimagine our relationship to it

It (forgiveness) is an unconditional gift. A gift of love.

Excerpt taken from Rick Morton’s book : My Year of Living Vulnerably : A Rediscovery of Love.