Tagged: “Why Forgive?”
Love Never Dies
Think about the love that one person has given to you some time in your life. That love is eternal. Love never dies.
If your mother gave you love 20 years ago, that love is still here and you can appropriate it, experience it, feel it. If you think about it, the love that your deceased family members gave to you years ago is still right here with you. Even though they passed on in a physical sense, they have left something of the eternal with you, to draw upon whenever you wish.
Now think about the love you have given to others. That love is eternal. Your love never dies. Your actions have consequences for love that will be on this earth long after you are gone. If you hug a child today, that love, expressed in that hug, can be with that child 50 years from now. Something of you remains here on earth, something good.
Children should be prepared for this kind of thinking through forgiveness education, where they learn that all people have built-in or inherent worth. One expression of forgiveness, one of its highest expressions, is to love those who have not loved us. If we educate children in this way, then they may take the idea more seriously that the love given and received can continue……and continue. It may help them to take more seriously such giving and receiving of love.
We need forgiveness education……now.
Robert
Actor Kelsey Grammer Forgives Serial Killer Who Raped and Murdered His Sister
Mirror, London, United Kingdom – Actor Kelsey Grammer’s younger sister Karen was only 18-years-old when she was raped and murdered by a serial killer in 1976. Although Grammer has carried that tragic loss in his heart for more than 40 years, he says that forgiveness is the only thing that has kept the horrific crime from destroying his life.
The much-loved star, who is best known for playing Dr Frasier Crane in television sitcoms Frasier and its predecessor Cheers, was the one who had to identify Karen’s body after her death. He said that, while he will always remember the “joy” of knowing her, he would not “let it disrupt me or destroy me.”
“As long as I’m alive I will miss her, and that’s just the way it is. So you carry that,” Grammer said. “I think you always carry it, because what you miss about them, is them in your life.”
Grammer added that forgiveness was a process that didn’t happen quickly for him and that it works together with justice.
“I’ve learned to forgive. I’ve even told the guy that is still alive that killed her that I do forgive him, although I don’t advocate for his freedom, I don’t think that’s reasonable.”
The actor, now 62, is currently starring in Big Fish The Musical at The Other Palace Theatre in London’s West End. He played Dr Frasier Crane for 20 years across the two TV comedy shows for which he won four Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes as a lead actor.#
Watch outtakes or the entire production of Big Fish The Musical or listen to the Big Fish Soundtrack.
Learn to Forgive? Who, Me? Why? How?
You can now access the answers to all those questions from the comfort of your own home.
Dr. Robert Enright, dubbed “the forgiveness trailblazer” by Time magazine, has helped thousands of people improve their lives by discovering and learning how to practice forgiveness through his one-day in-person workshops. Now that same remarkable forgiveness process, presented by Dr. Enright himself, is available to you via recorded audio right in your own home.
Forgiveness: A Pathway to Emotional Healing
Based on his 33-years of peer-reviewed, empirical scientific research, Dr. Robert Enright will help you discover and learn a step-by-step pathway to forgiveness. This 6-hour audiotaped workshop will enable you to develop confidence in your forgiveness skills and learn how you can bring forgiveness to your family, school, work place and community for better emotional health.
“Forgiveness is a process, freely chosen, in which you willingly reduce resentment through some hard work and offer goodness of some kind toward the one who hurt you,” according to Dr. Enright. “This gives you a chance to live a life of love, compassion and joy.”
Dr. Enright explains during this workshop how you can learn and use that process to help yourself and others. He explains, for example that:
• Forgiveness is NOT reconciliation, forgetting, excusing or condoning.
Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the International Forgiveness Institute
• Forgiveness does not get rid of the injustice but the effects of the injustice.
• Forgiveness cuts across many different philosophies and religions.
• The benefits of forgiveness are significant: scientific analyses demonstrates that considerable emotional, relational, and even physical health benefits result from forgiving.
This course is offered by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Continuing Studies which is approved as a provider of Continuing Education credits social workers, counselors, therapists, psychologists, and more. Registration fee is $95. Start anytime, complete within 1 year.
REGISTER ONLINE 
or register by phone at 608-262-2451. For additional information, contact Barbara Nehls-Lowe, UW-Madison Continuing Studies Outreach Specialist: 608-890-4653.
Does Forgiveness Victimize the Victim?
In the latest round of false criticism against the moral virtue of forgiveness, we find this: Forgiveness places an extra burden on victims because they already are burdened by injustice. Now asking them to forgive or even assisting them in forgiveness adds a new challenge, a new burden and this is unfair. Leave the victim alone, is the advice.
Let us examine this claim of a new unfair burden in forgiving. Suppose that Person A deliberately hits Person B’s knee with a baseball bat, breaking the knee. Person B has a burden: the broken knee and the resentment toward Person A.
If Person B now wishes to take seriously the responsibility for physical healing, should this person now go to the emergency room and endure the bright lights and the MRI and the surgery and the physical rehab? Or, would this be too much of an added burden for Person B. Perhaps it is unfair to encourage Person B to seek medical help……if we follow the logic of the forgiveness criticism.
Yet, this added burden of medical care, which can be a challenge, is hardly a burden relative to living with a broken knee that may not heal well with the resultant pain and limp that may last indefinitely. The “burden” of healing is not nearly as troublesome as the burden of neglect of the injury.
Now let us turn back to the argument against forgiveness. Let us even stay with the baseball bat incident. Person B not only has a broken knee, but now also a broken heart from the shocking and unexpected incident.
Is it a burden to assist this person in healing the broken heart? Should we just let the victim be? Should we just let the victim live with the broken heart…..perhaps for the rest of the person’s life?
Do you see how this latest criticism against forgiveness is false? Do you see how the major problem is the error in thinking by the critics and not in forgiveness itself?
When a person is morally injured, it seems to be charitable to offer healing. Yes, healing can be challenging, but ignoring healing can be much worse.
Robert
Richard Branson: F is for Forgiveness
Richard Branson is one of the world’s most prolific entrepreneurs. Since starting Virgin Records in London in 1970 (and selling it in 1992 for $1 billion), he has grown his Virgin Group brand into more than 60 Virgin companies worldwide, employing nearly 71,000 people in 35 countries.
Branson is the only person in the world to build eight billion dollar companies in eight different sectors. His current highest profile activity is Virgin Galactic, which is on track to become the world’s first privately funded commercial space line, and his SpaceX Interplanetary Transport System.
But after nearly 50 years of building companies, Branson says there is one attribute that is key to his success and that of his companies — forgiveness.
“One of the most important lessons I have ever learned is the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness has become a cultural policy within Virgin,” according to Branson. “We give second chances, and have reaped great rewards as a result. It’s amazing how much people lift their game when you put trust and hope in them.”
“My life and career could have been very different if I hadn’t chosen to forgive one of my very first business partners. After finding a note outlining his plans to oust me as Student magazine’s publisher and editor, I felt incredibly betrayed and we decided to part ways.”
From Student, Branson’s first business, came the idea for Virgin. But as the operation took off, Branson decided to let bygones be bygones and called up his former partner and asked him to re-join the team.
“Forgiving him was one of the best decisions I have ever made,” Branson said. “I retained a great friend, became happier at work and in life, and gained the confidence to grow Virgin. Forgiveness brought us both peace and success.”
According to Branson, one of his employees was caught stealing in the early days of Virgin Records. Instead of letting him go, Branson decided to forgive him and offer him a second chance. “And thankfully so,” Branson recalls, “as he went on to discover talent like Culture Club, Human League and Phil Collins and sign them to our music label.”
Citing another example, Branson says “Nelson Mandela’s life is a powerful tale of forgiveness. After being unfairly jailed for 27 years, he forgave the people who imprisoned him. This forgiveness enabled him to become one of the greatest leaders the world has ever seen. Together with Archbishop Desmond Tutu he set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission after apartheid was abolished, and the spirit of forgiveness shown in the process continues to enable South Africa to move forward.”
Branson’s advice on forgiveness: “If you’ve fallen out with someone, I urge you to call them up and arrange to meet and talk about the situation. You’ll most likely both think that the other person is to blame, but give each other the benefit of the doubt. Life’s too short to hold grudges. Everyone deserves freedom to move forward – and forgiveness is the fastest route to peace and happiness.”
Branson is the world’s most followed person on LinkedIn. He maintains a daily blog on his virgin.com website discussing everything from entrepreneurship, conservation and sustainability to travel, music and humor. He has more than 11.5 million followers across five social networks and has also written six books, including his autobiography Losing My Virginity.
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