The Forgiveness Handbook - by Editors at Skylight Paths Publishing (Paperback)

About the Book

This practical handbook--full of wisdom, gentle guidance and helpful spiritual practices--will be a welcome companion on your journey toward freedom and wholeness. Features over fifty contributors from many different faiths, backgrounds and perspectives.

Book Synopsis

Inspiration, encouragement and spiritual practice from across faith traditions for all who seek hope and wholeness through letting go.

We all carry wounds that can bind up our hearts and keep us from fully loving--and fully living--in the present. Our pain may come from devastating trauma or unconscious resentment from accumulated everyday grievances. No matter the depth of the hurt, in the warmth and wisdom of this inspiring guidebook readers will find courage to face the past and begin the process of letting go.

Contributors active as spiritual directors, clergy, religious scholars and retreat leaders draw on the depths of their own spiritual practice, religious traditions and sacred texts to offer hope and encouragement for the journey of forgiveness. They provide a rich variety of practices for cultivating an open and forgiving heart, both toward ourselves and others, as well as step-by-step guidance in the process of forgiveness. They share their insights on:

• Healing ourselves through forgiveness
• Overcoming obstacles to forgiveness
• Letting go of resentment, blame and anger
• Forgiving ourselves
• Deciding whether to restore relationships
• Asking for and accepting forgiveness
• Receiving Divine forgiveness
• Fostering mercy in our hearts
• Seeking peace and reconciliation in our communities

For use by individuals as well as groups in worship or counseling settings, this wide range of perspectives, offered with grace and compassion, will gently move readers toward the wholeness and freedom that come from true forgiveness.

Contributors: Nancy L. Bieber - Rev. Carolyne Call - Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell - Nancy Barrett Chickerneo, PhD - Paul Wesley Chilcote, PhD - William Cleary - Nancy Corcoran, CSJ - Linda Douty - Rabbi Ted Falcon - Marcia Ford - Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune - Tamar Frankiel, PhD - Rabbi Edwin Goldberg, DHL - Caren Goldman - Rev. Steven Greenebaum - Judy Greenfeld - Kent Ira Groff - Diana L. Guerrero - Rabbi Karyn D. Kedar - Kay Lindahl - Rabbi David Lyon - Pastor Don Mackenzie - St. Maximos - Ron Miller - Diane M. Millis, PhD - Rev. Timothy J. Mooney - Rev. Dr. John Philip Newell - Linda Novick - Rev. Larry J. Peacock - Gordon Peerman - M. Basil Pennington, OCSO - Jan Phillips - Susan Quinn - Imam Jamal Rahman - Marty Richards, MSW, LCSW - The Rev. Canon C.K. Robertson, PhD - Rev. Nanette Sawyer - Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper - The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori - Aaron Shapiro - Rami Shapiro - Louise Silk - Rev. Susan Sparks - Aaron Spevack, PhD - Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz - Molly and Bernie Srode - Tom Stella - Sohaib N. Sultan - Terry Taylor - Yoland Trevino - Rev. Jane E. Vennard - The Rev. Peter Wallace - Cynthia Winton-Henry

Review Quotes

The editors of SkyLight Paths have provided us with an invaluable moral service by assembling this serious, sobering, and multidimensional survey of forgiveness as a "journey to freedom, healing, and peace." They have divided the paperback into eight richly developed sections:

1. Understanding Forgiveness
2. Letting Go
3. Reconciliation and Forgiveness in Relationships
4. Forgiveness and the Divine
5. Accepting Forgiveness
6. Love Your Enemies
7. Forgiveness, Justice and Peace
8. Cultivating a Forgiving Heart

Among the more than 50 contributors are clergy, spiritual directors, and retreat leaders from a variety of traditions including William Cleary, Kent Ira Groff, Ron Miller, John Philip Newell, Basil Pennington, Jan Phillips, Imam Jamal Rahman, Donna Schaper, Rami Shapiro, Jane Vennard and many others.

All the religious and spiritual traditions raise up the value of forgiveness yet it remains a difficult and sometimes impossible practice for many people. This is why we need resources like this one to present many ways into forgiveness.

--Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat "Spirituality & Practice "