Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously...drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens our entire existence.

Ubuntu really says if you want to be nice to yourself, start in a way by being nice to the other.

Men and boys, we show our manhood through the way we treat our women. Our wives, our sisters, our mothers.

You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.

If we could but recognize our common humanity, that we do belong together, that our destinies are bound up in one another's, that we can be free only together, that we can be human only together, then a glorious world would come into being where all of us lived harmoniously together as members of one family, the human family.

We can be human only together. A person is a person to other persons.

When I talk of forgiveness I mean the belief that you can come out the other side ... a better person than the one being consumed by anger and hatred. Remaining in that state locks you in a state of victimhood, making you almost dependent on the perpetrator. If you can find it in yourself to forgive then you are no longer chained to the perpetrator. You can move on.