We entered a territory of greater and greater tenderness, two lost souls alone on deck on a black and limitless ocean, the wind howling off corners of the house, no lights to guide us and none to give our position away.

—Anne Michaels, in her novel and now a film, Fugitive Pieces

In the background material we developed as a reference for the campaign, we have a list of “ways love is thought of,” from eros or romantic love to agape, altruistic love. But working on the campaign, we’ve found that love is so personal and so dependent on each person’s experience, that a shared understanding of love cannot be taken for granted.

The quote above comes from Fugitive Pieces, a lyrically-written story about an orphaned Polish boy who is rescued and adopted by a Greek man during World War II. It captures a moment in time as love takes shape between two people. Feelings and experiences of love are both extremely personal and universal–witness the volumes written about it. With this blog entry, we invite you to share with others how you describe one of your experiences of love–love of a romantic partner, child, parent, sibling, friend, teacher, pet, nature or whatever is dear to you. Click on comments under the blog entry and share how you describe love.

Roselle Kovitz, a contributing writer for the Campaign for Love & Forgiveness, shares her musings from a recent weekend getaway.

I recently returned from a trip to Las Vegas. It’s not the first place you think of when you think of love. Hearts are left in San Francisco, after all. On the other hand, Las Vegas is the hedonist’s capital, where quickie marriages set the tone.

The casinos’ dizzying assault on the senses, the blatant and everpresent sexual overtones and the neon sensibility wasn’t lost on me. But there, in sin city, amidst the carefully conjured homage to uncensored wants and desires, I experienced love.

I met two long time friends for a girls’ weekend to see Bette Midler. At 62, Midler continues to share the moxie, humor, talent and irreverence that make her such a unique performer. And it’s that one-of-a-kind talent shared with the world that I believe is an expression of love itself. To truly be who you are at your core is, to me, an act of courage and of love. And it is something we can easily lose sight of.

My friends and I also enjoyed “Love,” the Cirque de Soleil tribute to the Beatles. While Cirque is an institution in Vegas, it started out as and still is a unique and vibrant art form. Whether as successful or extravagant as a Cirque performance or as personal as gardening, cooking or engaging in a craft project, creative expression, to me, is an important act of love we can give ourselves and others.

In a blog entry on the Garden of Forgiveness Web site, C. Ritter shared her experience earlier this summer working in the Stuyvesant Square Park Garden of Forgiveness with a summer camp group associated with the seminary that started the garden. She wrote, “It struck me how much work goes into tending and taking care of a garden. To keep it healthy and flourishing there must be a lot of work done. If only we could view ourselves similarly: that to keep our bodies and souls healthy, we must tend and take care of ourselves with the same concern, attention, tenderness and care. We have to look out for weeds of bitterness and anger, and lay a groundwork of forgiveness so they keep from spreading, choking off the life and beauty of the rest of the garden.”

Read her full entry and see photos of she and her fellow gardeners on the Garden of Forgiveness Web site. And check out the campaign’s Web section on creating a garden of love and forgiveness for yourself!

In this the final of three entries, Dr. Eileen Borris, a licensed clinical psychologist, political psychologist, educator/trainer, and author, shares a prayer for forgiveness.

I would like share the following prayer which illustrates the struggle and the freedom experienced on the deepest levels when we truly open our heart to forgiveness. Rabbi Leo Baeck, who survived the concentration camps in World War II, wrote this eloquent prayer about forgiving the Nazis. He worked to defend the Nazi officers and guards from revenge in the aftermath of the war. His prayer reflects the profound depth of his faith and of his understanding of forgiveness.

A Prayer for Forgiveness of the Nazis
by Rabbi Leo Baeck

Let there be peace for those of ill will, and an end to all vengeance and all talk of penalty and punishment….

The atrocities mock all standards; they stand beyond all borders of human comprehension, and the martyrs are many….

Therefore, O God, do not weigh their outrages with the scales of righteousness, and hand them over to executioners, demanding a terrible reckoning from them.

Deal with them differently.

Credit to the murderers and informants, betrayers and all evil persons the courage and the fortitude of the others, their personal modesty, their noble dignity, their silent efforts despite everything, the hope that does not surrender, and the brave smile that dries up tears, and all the sacrifice. All the warm love…all the harrowed, tortured hearts that still remained strong and ever trusting in the face of death and in death, yes, even the hours of profoundest weakness….

All that, O my God, should count before you as ransom for the forgiveness of debt should count for a rebirth of righteousness—all the good should count, not the evil.

And in the memory of our enemies we should no longer be their victims, no longer their nightmare and terror, but rather a help that releases them from their frenzy….

That is all that is asked of them—and that we, when all this is over, may live again as humans among humans, and that there will be peace again on this poor earth upon persons of good will, and that peace may also come upon the others.

This prayer demonstrates that forgiveness is a radical way of thinking that openly contradicts the most common beliefs of this troubled world. Radical because it involves a transformation of our thoughts of “an eye for an eye” to compassion and understanding. Forgiveness is the science of the heart, a discipline of discovering all the ways of being that will extend your love to the world, discarding all the ways that do not.

In this the second of three entries, Dr. Eileen Borris, a licensed clinical psychologist, political psychologist, educator/trainer, and author, shares her views and experience with forgiveness.

I am a political psychologist and work in many conflict ridden countries. I go to these places to help societies heal from the wounds of war and, if possible, to help former enemies learn how to live together along side one another in spite of what has happened in the past. Most recently I was in helping Liberians not only heal from the trauma of 14 years of civil war, but to also think about how they were going to rebuild their society based on forgiveness and reconciliation. For victims it is so very human to want revenge. For perpetrators it is human nature to only see one’s “innocence,” to deny the “truth” of what has happened, and then to fear that they may now be attacked. What I saw in Liberia is that people really needed to understand what forgiveness was about–their personal inner healing–before they could truly let go of their need for revenge and to come out of denial concerning what they had done.

I remember hearing the former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, in a speech to a joint session of Congress in February, 1990, that “without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, a more humane society will not emerge.” Einstein also warned that without a fundamental change in our thinking, humanity will drift towards catastrophe. When I think about these words, I think about the healing that needs to take place in our thinking to stop the cycles of anger, hatred, and fear that fuel so many conflicts not only in but in many of the conflict ridden places around the world. It is the kind of thinking which helps you look beyond outward behavior and recognize the divinity in each one of us. If you look closely, you will recognize that the true peacemakers are those who are not afraid to look within, change the way they think, and heal the pain of their heart. Forgiveness is pivotal in helping us change the way we think and supports this kind of healing transformation.

In this the first of three entries, campaign spokesperson, Dr. Eileen Borris, a licensed clinical psychologist, political psychologist, educator/trainer, and author, shares her views and experience with forgiveness. For years, she has been involved in the healing of emotional wounds on a personal and political level. She is Director of Training and Program Development for the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy where she works in the area of international conflict resolution. She is the author of Forgiveness the Ultimate Freedom Finding Forgiveness: A 7 Step Program for Letting Go of Anger and Bitterness.

I’ve been involved with the work of forgiveness for a very long time. In a way it came very unexpectedly when I began studying different spiritual disciplines, in particular, A Course in Miracles. For those who do not know the Course, which describes a sophisticated psychological thought system based on the dynamics of separation, guilt and fear. These dynamics are laid out in the story of Adam and Eve which can be seen as a mythological account of the birth of consciousness, whose cornerstones are separation, guilt, and fear. Adam and Eve enjoying the Garden of Eden were told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Then came the serpent tempting Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Eve took the fruit, ate it, and gave it to Adam. At that moment everything changed. Adam and Eve heard the voice of God walking in the garden and became fearful. When asked who had taken the bite of the forbidden fruit, Adam turned to Eve who then blamed the snake. Then Adam and Eve were punished for their sins. In psychological terms we have gotten so wrapped up in our ego that we have turned away from our spiritual essence. There is a part of ourselves which recognizes this, which is where the guilt comes in. Since guilt is so hard to look at we can only see fault in others denying that we have a shadow side to ourselves. Guilt implies punishment and so we are always defending ourselves by attacking others because of our fear of what may be coming our way.

I share this story because when we understand the dynamics of how we think, only then can we understand the importance of what forgiveness is about. For me forgiveness is about undoing the kind of thinking, motivated by our anger, guilt or fear, which cuts us off from our higher nature. If we can recognize that we see the world through the lens of our personal guilt and fear and if we can heal this within ourselves, then we get closer to our spiritual nature and see what has happened to us in a very different light. The process of forgiveness helps us do this. Forgiveness helps us change the way we think so we can see the light within each one of us instead of only the outward behavior which can block that light. When we are committed to the path of forgiveness and are willing to do the deep inner work that is often required, we are given what we need which can transform our lives in ways we cannot even imagine. I have heard so many inspiring stories of people from all walks of life whose lives were profoundly changed because they were able to forgive. This has put the passion in my heart to help others to learn how to forgive. When we experience the power of forgiveness it is as though something new gets created inside of ourselves, an interior renovation written upon our inner self where there is no need of outer instruction. This spiritual transformation is a beautiful gift that only forgiveness can bring.

“It was as if the sound of the universe was taken.” That’s how Takashi Tanemori describes experiencing the explosion of the atomic bomb when he was eight years old. It took him decades to forgive the Americans for bombing his country and leaving him orphaned.

“Tanemori will speak at the Atomic Testing Museum today, the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and again on Saturday, the anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing.” According to the Las Vegas Sun, ‘the lectures accompany an exhibit of Tanemori’s journey detailed in his book, Hiroshima: Bridge to Forgiveness. His mixed-media work, on display through Sept. 7, includes “We Have the Target,” which combines portraits of Emperor Hirohito and President Truman, Japanese and American flags, an aerial map of Hiroshima and a small Japanese boy looking at ground zero.’

Read Tanemori’s moving story and view some of his artwork. Read other stories of forgiveness or share yours in the stories section of this site.

On July 13th, Turkish and Kurdish intellectuals came together to “hammer out what many saw as historic document in solving the Kurdish problem in Turkey….”

“In the overall discussion on the victimization phenomenon, psychologist Kemal Sayar said the best solution to serve both sides well was forgiveness: ‘Forgiveness is very important.’ He cautioned, however, that ‘this does not mean we should forget.’ Forgiveness will take the vengeance feeling from people’s minds and help them cope with anger and frustration, and listening to human stories will help solve the problem, he contended, adding: ‘If not, all that has happened will degrade itself to numbers and statistics, which have no feelings.’”

As a graduate student, Laura Waters Hinson set out to capture a great experiment in forgiveness and reconciliation amidst the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Below is a description of the film, narrated by Mia Farrow, that was not only her graduate thesis, but has also received the Gold prize at the Student Academy Awards in Hollywood.

Could you forgive a person who murdered your family? This is the question faced by the subjects of As We Forgive, a documentary about Rosaria and Chantal–two Rwandan women coming face-to-face with the men who slaughtered their families during the 1994 genocide. The subjects of As We Forgive speak for a nation still wracked by the grief of a genocide that killed one in eight Rwandans in 1994. Overwhelmed by an enormous backlog of court cases, the government has returned over 50,000 thousand genocide perpetrators back to the very communities they helped to destroy. Without the hope of full justice, Rwanda has turned to a new solution: Reconciliation.

Screenings of As We Forgive are being set up around the country. If you are interested in hosting one, check out the film’s Web site for details.

“To err is human, to forgive infrequent.”
—Franklin P. Adams, US Journalist

Make forgiveness a more frequent act in your life. Celebrate the 12th Annual International Forgiveness Day on Sunday, August 3, 2008, by turning your thoughts and intentions toward forgiveness—of yourself or others. This special day, started by the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance, is dedicated to evoking the healing power of forgiveness worldwide. Watch a video on Forgiveness Day activities over the years.