“There is no future without forgiveness.” --Desmond Tutu
We all have betrayed others and have been betrayed. We all have abandoned others and have been abandoned. We all have been silently complicit when our friends have been maligned, even though we know what it is like to have been slandered and abused. We all have withheld a kind gesture, a word of encouragement, a tender embrace, our vulnerability, and forgiveness, though we know what it is like to have been unloved and unforgiven in these same ways. We have badmouthed leaders behind their backs, even though we know what that was like when we were leaders. There will be no future until we learn to forgive and transform our pain, rather than transmit it.
We know that the suffering inside us contains the suffering of our ancestors, our fathers and mothers, and their fathers and mothers. They may not have had a chance, or known how, to heal their wounds, so they may have passed it along to us. But, we also know if we can transform rather than transmit our suffering, conflicts, and wounds, we are healing the suffering in the world, the suffering of all those with whom we minister, and the suffering here among ourselves.
Dunn, Ted, Graced Crossroads: Pathways to Deep Change & Transformation, CSS Publications, 2020, pp. 370-371
