Forgiveness – “The Beginning of All Things”

As a teenager in 1986, newsman David Gregory (former Meet the Press moderator) had been with his mother when she was arrested for drunk driving, capping her long struggle with alcohol through much of Gregory’s childhood. She immediately joined AA and has since remained sober. But deep wounds remained. Here is an excerpt from Gregory’s new book How’s Your Faith? An Unlikely Spiritual Journey: 

And then I asked Mom the question straight out. “Do you think I have forgiven you for the arrest?”

“No. I don’t think you have,” she said. “I think because it’s the focal point of who are you today. It’s when you got tough.”

“You mean you think I hold on to the grittiness that I developed because of living with your alcoholism as a teenager?” I asked.

“Yes,” Mom replied. “Frankly, Davey, I have had to think a lot about forgiveness since I got sober. And I think it is used more as a word rather than an action. But since I’ve had my faith reactivated through the program, I’ve realized that it serves no purpose not to truly forgive.”

She is aware that forgiving is not a simple process. “I think there is daily work on forgiveness,” Mom said. “I don’t think forgiveness is the end of anything. I think it’s the beginning of all things.”

I forgive my mother.

Read the full excerpt from the October 2015 AARP Bulletin – A Newsman’s Struggle to Forgive.
Purchase the book at Amazon.comHow’s Your Faith?

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