"When forgiving someone who has done you wrong in a terrible way..."

"...the forgiving part is for yourself. Not the other person."

I'll admit that I'm too young for reddit (14), but feel like getting the message out there because it is still important.
I'll keep this short and simple.
Until age 6, me and my father were best friends, until he got addicted to drugs and alcohol. This happened until I was 12, so my mom would never let me see him. He got clean a few years back, but married a woman who disliked me. Therefore, he did not want to see me. I've only just fully adjusted to accepting the fact that he is out of my life, but he relapsed in drinking last year. He has been trying to contact me, but I ignored him every time. The thing is: it was and still is too mentally exhausting for me to deal with him.
It started with his liver. Now, most of his organs are shutting down like clockwork. He is very sick and is practically pleading to spend a day with me and I've decided to give it a shot. For peace between the two of us.
I go and see him tomorrow before he gets moved to another hospital. I'm not sure what to expect.
Remember, forgiving is for yourself, not for the other person. Don't be afraid of giving forgiveness.
-This might be deleted later, just trying to get my mind off of things and it helped somewhat..

Via Reddit

"Lessons on Love"

"From a Rabbi Who Knows Hate and Forgiveness"

In 1991, he [rabbi Michael Weisser] was living in Lincoln, Neb., with his wife at the time, Julie Michael, and three of their five children. He was then the cantor and spiritual leader of the South Street Temple, the oldest Jewish congregation in Lincoln. One Sunday morning, a few days after they had moved into their new house, the phone rang.

The man on the other end of the line called Rabbi Weisser “Jew boy” and told him he would be sorry he had moved in. Two days later, a thick package of anti-black, anti-Semitic pamphlets arrived in the mail, including an unsigned card that read, “The KKK is watching you, scum.”

The messages, it turned out, were from Larry Trapp, the Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Nebraska, who kept loaded weapons, pro-Hitler material and his Klan robe in his cramped Lincoln apartment. Then 42, Mr. Trapp was nearly blind and used a wheelchair to get around; both of his legs had been amputated because of diabetes.

In a 1992 interview with Time magazine, Mr. Trapp said he had wanted to scare Rabbi Weisser into moving out of Lincoln. “As the state leader, the Grand Dragon, I did more than my share of work because I wanted to build up the state of Nebraska into a state as hateful as North Carolina and Florida,” he said. “I spent a lot of money and went out of my way to instill fear.”

Rabbi Weisser, who suspected the person threatening him was Mr. Trapp, got his telephone number and started leaving messages on the answering machine. “I would say things like: ‘Larry, there’s a lot of love out there. You’re not getting any of it. Don’t you want some?’ And hang up,” he said. “And, ‘Larry, why do you love the Nazis so much? They’d have killed you first because you’re disabled.’ And hang up. I did it once a week.”

One day, Mr. Trapp answered. Ms. Michael, the rabbi’s wife, had told him to say something nice if he ever got Mr. Trapp on the line, and he followed her advice. “I said: ‘I heard you’re disabled. I thought you might need a ride to the grocery,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

Then, one night, Rabbi Weisser’s phone rang again. It was Mr. Trapp. “He said, quote-unquote — I’ll never forget it, it was like a chilling moment, in a good way — he said, ‘I want to get out of what I’m doing and I don’t know how,’ ” Rabbi Weisser said.

He and Ms. Michael drove to Mr. Trapp’s apartment that night. The three talked for hours, and a close friendship formed. The couple’s home became a kind of hospice for Mr. Trapp, who moved into one of their bedrooms as his health worsened, and Ms. Michael became Mr. Trapp’s caretaker and confidante.

Mr. Trapp eventually renounced the Klan, apologized to many of those he had threatened and converted to Judaism in Rabbi Weisser’s synagogue.

The relationship later inspired a 1995 book by Kathryn Watterson, “Not by the Sword: How the Love of a Cantor and His Family Transformed a Klansman.”

Via Reddit...

Long Lost Family Reunion

 

This nurse moved me to tears.

New York Mag: "Guy Who Called LeBron James the ‘Whore of Akron’ Forgives Him Now"

"Broadway Danny Rose said it best — 'Acceptance, forgiveness, and love,'" Raab writes after today's big news. "As human beings, that's the only recipe for leading a righteous life in this world. Such words — from the famous and unfamous — come cheap. But you're living those truths now, walking that walk. Who am I to hold a grudge?"

In other words, Scott Raab, who profited off of his sports-fan indignation, read James's touching announcement as an apology to Scott Raab, and he would like the best basketball player on earth to know that apology is accepted.

On his return to Cleveland, a letter to @KingJames, from @ScottRaab64: http://t.co/mq6CFb8EA9 pic.twitter.com/lamMDgVEC2
— Esquire Magazine (@Esquiremag) July 11, 2014

Watch a Broadway Danny Rose clip after the jump

"A Journalist’s Plea On 10th Anniversary Of ‘The Passion Of The Christ’: Hollywood, Take Mel Gibson Off Your Blacklist"

Excerpt...

"The Gibson I’ve come to know isn’t a man who’ll shout from the rooftops that he’s not anti-Semitic, or hold a press conference to tell media those audiotapes were released as part of a shakedown, and that he never assaulted the mother of his infant daughter. He won’t explain to people that he first got himself into a career spiral because he’s a long struggling alcoholic who fell off the wagon and spewed hateful anti-Semitic remarks to an arresting officer who was Jewish. He won’t tell you that he’s still got a lot to offer Hollywood as a filmmaker."

"The fact that he won’t jump to his own defense is part of his problem, but also part of why I have grown to respect him. That is why on the occasion of this 10th anniversary of Passion, a film about an innocent man’s willingness to forgive the greatest injustice, I propose to Hollywood that it’s time to forgive Mel Gibson. He has been in the doghouse long enough. It’s time to give the guy another chance." read more

Deadline Hollywood

"How I rediscovered Faith"

"The Derksens live in a small bungalow in a modest neighborhood not far from downtown Winnipeg. Wilma Derksen and I sat in her backyard. I think some part of me expected her to be saintly or heroic. She was neither. She spoke simply and quietly. She was a Mennonite, she explained. Her family, like many Mennonites, had come from Russia, where those of their faith had suffered terrible persecution before fleeing to Canada. And the Mennonite response to persecution was to take Jesus’ instructions on forgiveness seriously."

“The whole Mennonite philosophy is that we forgive and we move on,” she said. It had not always been easy. It took more than 20 years for the police in Winnipeg to track down Candace’s killer. In the beginning, Wilma’s husband, Cliff, had been considered by some in the police force as a suspect. The weight of that suspicion fell heavily on the Derksens. Wilma told me she had wrestled with her anger and desire for retribution. They weren’t heroes or saints. But something in their tradition and faith made it possible for the Derksens to do something heroic and saintly."

Malcolm Gladwell on "the weapons of the spirit"

Miss him? Yes.

I viewed this video this morning. It's linked on Twitter by @MornCommute. Actually, I thought I viewed it at Ace of Spades, but I can't seem to find it over there now. It touched me. Forgiveness is a fascinating topic for me, and it doesn't surprise me at all that George W. Bush is quick to forgive.
Yes, I miss him. Very much.