What keeps us from forgiving the people who hurt us is that we have not yet healed the wounds they inflicted. Forgiveness is the gift at the end of the healing process. We find it waiting for us when we reach a point where we stop expecting "them" to pay for what they did or make it up to us in some way. Yet, forgiveness is moving on. It is recognizing that we have better things to do with our life and then doing them.
In the center of the city, I am that child that screams in the tenement, the infant that cries in the night holding out its arms to be comforted. I am the young man and woman searching for their way. I am the weary, the wounded, the cold and hungry asking, "why?" ... the old and all who know pain and are acquainted with grief. The loved, the unloved, the abandoned, the lonely and the homeless ... I am all who thirst for the Way. I am child of God, of the Mysterious One, the Immutable, and a child of timeless time. I have no color and speak no language ... and yet, pushed down, way down to the bottom of the Cave to touch the Divine Flame, I become part of everyone and everyone is part of me. The way below and the way above is lit with the golden match of love. Thanks be to the name that cannot be named.