Forgiveness

I came across two great texts on forgiveness last week. They impressed me so much that I want to share them with you. Besides, folks are already making plans for Thanksgiving, even here in the USA where it will take place on Thursday, November 25. So now's a good time to go about forgiving people so that we can get on with what's important -- food and drink. Haha, no, of course, I mean, friends and family. So without further dodo:

The Potato Story...

One day, our teacher asked us to bring to school some bitter potatoes and a bag of plastic. He told us to put in the bag a potato for every single person for which we have hard feelings and write the name on it. And we had to carry the bag with us everywhere we'd go for a week. Some of the potatoes were really heavy and, of course, some started to deteriorate. The weight of the bag proved to me how big was the burden that I used to carry with me everyday in my heart because of all the hard feelings and rancor. I was being cautious not to forget the bag and so I started to neglect things that were more important for me.

This exercise made me think about the price we pay just because we can't forgive something that already has happened and that we couldn't change.

Many times we think that forgiveness is a gift for the other, without really realizing that we are the first who benefit from it. We all wear potatoes that turn rotten in our sentimental "bag". The incapability to forgive is like a venom that we take everyday, drop by drop, and in the end it poisons us. Forgiveness liberates us from the burden that bitters our soul and makes our body sick.

To forgive doesn't mean that you agree with what happened or that you approve it. To forgive doesn't mean that what happened isn't important anymore or that you give right to the one who's hurt you. It simply means to let go all of those negative thoughts that only cause pain and anger. Ghandi said: Forgiveness is the quality of the brave ones. Only he who is strong enough to forgive an insult knows to love.

Stone

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey, they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand, “Today my best friend slapped me in the face.”

They kept on walking, until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone, “Today my best friend saved my life.”

The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone. Why?”

The friend replied, “When someone hurts us we should write it down in sand, where winds of forgiveness can erase it away. But, when someone does something good for us, we must engrave it in stone where no wind can ever erase it.”

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then, an entire life to forget them.

Learn to write your hurts in the sand and to carve your benefits in stone.

Let go of any grudges and reconnect with those who are important to you or those to whom you are important. Make plans to be with them this holiday season.