Forgiveness means "to give up resentment against". When we give up our resentment against another person, we are consciously choosing to not allow that person to exercise the power to make us angry. Forgiveness acknowledges that we are ultimately responsible for the world we create and how we feel about it... Through forgiveness we encounter the frail essence of the other ... this creates fertile ground where miracles occur, where avowed enemies join hands as friends.
Essentially neuter, silence, like light or love, requires a medium to give it meaning, takes on the color of its host, adapts easily to our fears and needs. Quite apart from whether we seek or shun it, silences orchestrate the music of our days... If it's true that all symphonies end in silence, it's equally true that they begin there as well. Silence, after all, both buries and births us, and just as life without the counterweight of mortality would mean nothing, so silence alone, by offering itself as the eternal Other, makes music possible.
~ from "Listening For Silence" by Mark Slouka with thanks to Alice Spicer
