True forgiveness deals with the past, all of the past, to make the future possible. We cannot go on nursing grudges even vicariously for those who cannot speak for themselves any longer. We have to accept that we do what we do for generations past, present and yet to come. That is what makes a community a community or a people a people-for better or for worse.

Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"

We are made by God, we are made like God, we are made for God.

When we look squarely at injustice and get involved, we actually feel less pain, not more, because we overcome the gnawing guilt and despair that festers under our numbness. We clean the wound - our own and others' - and it can finally heal.

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

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.

Our Christian faith is actually very subversive of the conventional notion of success - the notion that what invests a person with worth is something extrinsic.