VLVL2 (15): "maybe forget, but never forgive"

[dedalus204 at comcast.net]

365. 14: "Still a danger of collapsing into a single issue, turning into your case, obsessed with those who've wronged you, with their continuing exemption from punishment. . . . Sometimes I lose it, sure, go out in the night, malevolent, mean, and I find your mom and mess with her.  She cries, she gets into fights with her husband.  So what, I figure, it isn't even the interest on what she owes me.  But lately I've just been letting her be . . . figuring, maybe forget, but never forgive."



[...] "Those who find it hardest to forgive are people who are most unsure of their own self-worth. The least infraction against them becomes a federal case, because it plucks a sensitive nerve of self-doubt lying just below the surface. The injured party overreacts, seizing upon the infraction as an opportunity to project his or her own negative self-feelings onto the offending party. 

"Those people who, for no apparent reason, we find most offensive, really get to us, we can't forgive, can offer valuable insights into our own unresolved issues. The unforgettable example that brought this lesson home to me was the true story of a New Yorker who saw a man push a women into the path of an oncoming subway train. Many months later this New Yorker was still seething with anger towards the murderer, as if this horrible incident had just happened yesterday. At first the New Yorker could see no connection between himself and the murderer. He said: "I could never possibly do such a terrible thing. Why can't I let go of my rage towards that man." It was only gradually that the New Yorker came to realize that while everyone thought of him as a big, happy-go-lucky sort of guy, deep inside people really got on his nerves. He wished he could push them out of his life! His unabated anger towards the murderer was being fed by his rejection of this negative side of himself. It was through his abiding anger at the murderer that this New Yorker was able to come into touch with something new and important about himself. The people who bug us most can teach us most about ourselves. In learning to forgive them, we learn to forgive ourselves." [...]

http://www.catholic-center.rutgers.edu/FrRonStanley/forgive!.html

http://www.monkeyrivertown.com/brains.php?ART=254

http://maxpages.com/fromtheheart/Forgive_and_Forget

http://www.geocities.com/kricketskorner/forgive.html