The only hope for the future lay in an all-embracing attitude of forgiveness of the peoples who had been our enemies.

Ungrace causes cracks to fissure open between mother and daughter, father and son, brother and sister, between scientists, and prisoners, and tribes, and races. Left alone, cracks widen, and for the resulting chasms of ungrace there is only one remedy: the frail rope-bridge of forgiveness.

Politics deals with externals: borders, wealth, crimes. Authentic forgiveness deals with the evil in a person's heart, something for which politics has no cure.

if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor's prison and got instead a clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance; I got a banquet—Babette's feast—spread for me.

by denying forgiveness to others, we are in effect determining them unworthy of God's forgiveness, and thus so are we.

At last I understood: in the final analysis, forgiveness is an act of faith. By forgiving another, I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am. By forgiving, I release my own right to get even and leave all issues of fairness for God to work out. I leave in God's hands the scales that must balance justice and mercy.

forgiveness alone can halt the cycle of blame and pain, breaking the chain of ungrace.

Though forgiveness is never easy, and may take generations, what else can break the chains that enslave people to their historical past?

Only forgiveness frees us from the injustice of others.

When you forgive someone, you slice away the wrong from the person who did it. You disengage that person from his hurtful act.

for the resulting chasms of ungrace there is only one remedy: the frail rope-bridge of forgiveness

Forgiveness has its own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice.