FORGIVING..

To err is human; to forgive is divine.

                            … Allexander Pope

You must forgive those who transgress against you before you can look to forgiveness from above.

                             ….Talmud

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.

                                … The Lord’s Prayer

Life is short and we have not too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark way with us. Oh, be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!

                                … Henri F. Amiel

Life is too short to be little.

                                … Benjamin Disraeli

There are many fine things which you mean to do some day, under what you think will be more favourable circumstances. But the only time that is surely yours is the present, hence this is the time to speak the word of appreciation and sympathy, to do the generous deed, to forgive the fault of a thoughtless friend, to sacrifice self a little more for others. Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed, and to use your God-given abilities for the enrichment of some less fortunate fellow traveler. Today you can make your life  . . . . significant and worth while. The present is yours to do with it as you will. 

                                       …..Grenville Kleiser 

In this life, if you have anything to pardon, pardon quickly. Slow forgiveness is little better than no forgiveness.

                                        … Sir Arthur W. Pinero

Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end;

Yet days go by, and weeks rush on,

And before I know it a year is gone,

And I never see my old friend’s face,

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men:

Tired with playing a foolish game,

Tired with trying to make a name.

“Tomorrow” I say, ‘I will call him Jim,

Just to show that I am thinking of him.”

But tomorrow comes – and tomorrow goes,

And the distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner – yet miles away . . .

“Here’s a telegram, Sir . . .

                        “ Jim died today.” 

And that’s what we get, and deserve in the end :

Around the corner, a vanished friend.

                           ….. Charles Hanson Towne
 

As usual, the great church was filled. Phillips Brooks faced the enormous, hushed congregation as he had so many times before, Sunday after Sunday—the expectant, well-dressed congregation waiting for his weekly message.

He looked into the faces of men and women he long had known, men and women who had come to him with their problems, who had asked for his help and guidance. How well he knew what seethed behind the pleasant, smiling masks of their Sunday-best respectability! How well he knew the petty spites that embittered their hearts, the animosities that set neighbor against neighbor, the silly quarrels that were kept alive, he jealousies and misunderstanding, the stubborn pride.

Today his message was for those bitter, unbending ones who refused to forgive and forget. He must make them realize that life is too short to nurse grievances, to harbor grudges and resentments. He would plead for tolerance and understanding, for sympathy and kindness. He would plead for brotherly love.

“Oh, my dear friends!” he said… and it was as though he spoke to each separately and alone :

“You who are letting miserable misunderstanding run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day ;

You who are keeping wretched quarrels alive because you cannot quite make up your mind that now is the day to sacrifice your pride and kill them;

You who are passing men sullenly upon the street, not speaking to them out of some silly spite, and yet knowing that it would fill you with shame and remorse if you heard that one of those men were dead tomorrow morning;

You who are letting your neighbor starve, till you hear that he is dying of starvation;

Or letting your friend’s heart ache for a word of appreciation or sympathy, which you mean to give him someday; if you only could know and see and feel, all of a sudden, that “the time is short,” how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do.” 

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