“I was having a hard time forgiving the man I had been married to. I realized that the hatred and the trauma and all of these things that we carry with us, we’re not afraid to let go of them because they’re so painful; we’re actually afraid to let go of them because they’ve become so comfortable. Our injuries can be like warm blankets that we wrap around ourselves—and they stop us, if we wrap them tightly enough around ourselves, from feeling vulnerable to the world. And I came to see that, until I was willing to let go of those blankets of grief and fear and rage and anger and shame, that I actually couldn’t experience the world. And for me, that letting go is a profound description of what forgiveness is, and that’s the moment that one moves from grief into the transformative power of mourning, in the context of having a future.”
On Being with Krista Tippett – Serene Jones
“On Grace”: https://onbeing.org/programs/serene-jones-on-grace/
This week’s quotes on forgiveness come from On Being, a podcast dedicated to “pursuing deep thinking and moral imagination, social courage and joy, to renew inner life, outer life, and life together.” Quotes from these transcripts have been lightly edited for readability. –Erica Lloyd
