Forgiveness: the practice and the dance

"Practicing forgiveness can produce dramatic transformations in our imaginations and the psychological, social and political horizons of our lives." --L. Gregory Jones

In Practicing Our Faith, ed. by Dorothy Bass, Jones writes, "The practice of forgiveness is not simply a one-time action or an isolated feeling or thought. Forgiveness involves us in a whole way of life that is shaped by an ever-deepening friendship with God and with other people. The central goal of this practice is to reconcile, to restore communion - with God, with one another, and with the whole creation. Forgiveness works through our ongoing willingness to give up certain claims against one another, to give the truth when we access our relationships with one another, and to give gifts of ourselves by making innovative gestures that offer a future not bound by the past."

He describes forgiveness as a dance. Once we know the steps we can do them more rapidly and vary the sequence. As we are learning it is good to take it more slowly.

The Dance of Forgiveness from Practicing Our Faith, p. 138-9
a. We become willing to speak truthfully and patiently about the conflicts that have arisen.
b. We acknowledge both the existence of anger and bitterness and a desire to overcome them.
c. We summon up a concern for the well-being of the other, as a fellow human being, or as a child of God.
d. We recognize our own complicity in conflict, remember that we have been forgiven in the past, and take the step of repentance.
e. We make a commitment to struggle to change whatever caused and continues to perpetuate our conflicts.
f. We confess our yearning for the possibility of reconciliation.

What truth have you not spoken?
What anger or bitterness are you carrying?
How can you acknowledge the other?
What is your part in the issue, if only holding on?
What can you change?
Do you want reconciliation or only revenge?

So is your dance of forgiveness a waltz, the twist, a tango, or something else?