On Forgiveness

This is a quote from "A Little Book of forgiveness" by D. Patrick Miller

"Begin not with the idea that you are doing a favor to someone who hurt you, but that you are being merciful to yourself.  To carry an anger against anyone is to poison your own heart, administering more toxin every time you replay in your mind the injury done to you.  If you decline to repeat someone's offense inwardly, your outward anger will dissipate.  Then it becomes much easier to tell the one who hurt you how things must change between you."

On Creativity

Also from "A Little Book of forgiveness" by D. Patrick Miller

"In a time when the recollection and cataloging of abuses done to people has become a virtual industry, we have to be careful about proclaiming the specialness of our particular wounds.  The end point of remembering exactly how we have been damaged is to realize that we all share the deep common wound of humanity:  being born into vulnerable bodies in a mysterious and dangerous world.  Our particular wounds have a lot to do with who we are, and that history is important to understand. But learning to forgive all our wounds, regardless of their history, is what will make us who we are becoming. An unimagined creativity blossoms in every space within the heart from which pain has been released. 

On Cleaning Out the Clutter

...from a collection edited by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield

"When you aren't distracted by your own negative thinking, when you don't allow yourself to get lost in moments that are gone or yet to come, you are left with this moment."

If we can forgive everyone, regardless of what he or she may have done, we nourish the soul and allow our whole being to feel good.  To hold a grudge against anyone is like carrying the devil on your shoulders.  It is our willingness to forgive and forget that casts away such a burden and brings light into our hearts, freeing us from many ill feelings against our fellow human beings.