Once we have forgiven, however, we get a new freedom to forget. This time forgetting is a sign of health; it is not a trick to avoid spiritual surgery. We can forget because we have been healed. But even if it is easier to forget after we forgive, we should not make forgetting a test of our forgiving. The test of forgiving lies with healing the lingering pain of the past, not with forgetting the past has ever happened.

Human sexuality includes more than hormones, organs, and orgasms; it runs through the psychic and spiritual ranges of our lives. We experience our sexuality on the spiritual level as a yearning for another person. We want to reach out and stretch ourselves into the depths of another. We want to bring the other person into the orbit of our deepest selves. We want to probe into the mystery of the other.

Forgiving is, first of all, a way of helping yourself to get free of the unfair pain somebody caused you.

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory.

The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

I learned that gratitude is the best feeling I would ever have, the ultimate joy of living.

We feel guilty for what we do. We feel shame for what we are.