The Council For Dignity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation

During the week of April 19, 2010 I was in Rome attending meetings as a member of the Council for Dignity, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation. Created by Maria Nicoletta Gaida the Council is part of the Ara Pacis Initiative initiated by the Glocal Forum Italy Foundation and promoted by the City of Rome with the High Patronage of the Republic of Italy and under the auspices of the Prime Minister and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Ara Pacis Initiative is dedicated to the human dimension of peace before, during and after conflict. This project has attracted the active interest of the President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, and the President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and has been favorably received by H.M. Mohammed VI, the King of Morocco.

The project aims to launch an active reflection on forgiveness, in its various religious and cultural meanings, as a moral, spiritual and political tool for achieving reconciliation among peoples – with a particular focus on the Mediterranean and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This is an initiative that will bring to light and recognize the root causes of contemporary suffering and the wounds buried deep in collective memory in order to restore dignity to those who have suffered, thereby creating the premise for a reconciliation that allows for the building of a common future.

The heart of the Ara Pacis Initiative is the Council for Dignity, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation, made up primarily of men and women who have suffered personally because of armed conflict and who have chosen the path of forgiveness, and forgiveness and reconciliation experts and practitioners who work to imagine a new community, to propose the way of political forgiveness, and to develop ongoing activities aimed at raising awareness of the necessity of working on the path of forgiveness/reconciliation through education as well as intercultural and inter-religious dialogue in all fields. Through concrete projects the Council will aim to transform relations between communities in conflict to help them take the paths of reconciliation. The work of the Council will be to share their knowledge, experiences and insight concerning dignity, forgiveness and reconciliation, and initiating projects such as sending small teams of experts to promote approaches rarely used, but dramatically necessary – like forgiveness with justice, restoring dignity, and healing from trauma.

The Council will work in strict coordination with the national and international diplomatic channels and in collaboration with grassroots organizations active on the ground – on initiatives promoting reflection and participation of the various populations in the area of forgiveness. It will guide the activities related to the gathering and documenting of testimonies of conflict victims to memorialize them, as well as the selection of representatives of the victims from all sides – as victimization from hate and violence leaves no side untouched – to participate in the Council’s hearings.

Council for Dignity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation

I will be working on the creation of a "Council for Dignity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation" in Rome from April 18- 26. The people on the council are a group of wise and authoritative human beings who could lead the world down the paths of understanding, forgiveness and reconciliation; a body which proposes a new form of justice, which symbolically unites the human family and is at the service of peoples in conflict, that they should not be left alone in the folly of hatred and injustice; so that dignity and forgiveness can be striven for even in the heart of darkness, so that voices of sanity and of light may be heard when calls for punishment and revenge suffocate even the remotest desire for peace, so that historical wrongs, contemporary greed, spiritual derailment and the power to humiliate can be revealed and addressed in order to create space for reconciliation. I will speak more about this when I return from Rome.

For more information on forgiveness please go to "Finding Forgiveness: A 7 Step Program for Letting Go of Anger and Bitterness" published by McGraw-Hill and to the blog on forgiveness: http://findingforgiveness.blogspot.com

www.dreileenborris.com

www.globalpeaceinitiatves.com

A Resolution on Forgiveness for the United Nations

I will be away this week and not be able to write although the work of forgiveness will be prominent in my thinking. I will be spending some time at the United Nations this week speaking to people in gaining their support of me writing a resolution on forgiveness and the healing of nations. Last November I presented a paper on forgiveness and the healing of nations to members of the United Nations, UN agencies and some NGO’s. As many of you know I care about helping people personally find forgiveness in their lives. Perhaps my greatest concern and deepest reason why I feel called to do the work of forgiveness is to help heal the hatred which gets passed down from generation to generation. Hatred fuels the flames of war, genocide and other types of mass murder which we have witnessed too much of this past century. Humanity has made great intellectual, scientific and technological advances but we have not experienced the same advance in understanding our spiritual nature and the healing power of love. It will be a daunting effort to stop the destruction of humanity by the use of raw power and technology alone. We can only overcome our adversity by our sincere desire to want to change our thinking about one another and pray that our minds can be changed. As we learn to forgive ourselves and others hopefully we can take action based on the understanding gained from our collective moments of grace. It will take the power of unconditional love and our acts of kindness to transform humanities consciousness from destructive action to peace based on our ability to forgive. Yet at this moment we do not have broad enough knowledge and wisdom to understand the profound spiritual depth that forgiveness can bring. It is through this collective understanding of consciousness that we will come to know that peace gained through understanding and love is the only way to prevent our extinction and secure our future.

Vaclev Havel said in an address to a joint session of the United States Congress in 1990 that "without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, a more humane society will not emerge." Stopping the cycles of anger, hatred, and fear which fuel so much suffering, requires a radical change in our thinking. Without this change we will stay stuck in the quagmire of violence and aggression, passing down to each generation the legacy of violence and guilt which will only perpetuate these cycles. If, on the other hand, we are honestly committed to harmonious relationships, then we will recognize that the true heroes are those individuals who are not afraid to look within, to change the way they think, and heal the pain of their heart. This kind of healing transformation is what forgiveness is about and this is the kind of transformation I would like to create among nations.

For those interested in obtaining a copy of my paper please feel free to contact me.

The Challenge of Forgiveness

Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan woman who wrote Left to Tell (Hay House, 2006) was able to forgive the unthinkable. For 91 days of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda she hid in a tiny bathroom with seven other women in the home of her local pastor. She describes the horror she lived through and the stunning transformation she experienced because of her desire to forgive. Something happened within her where she was able to move her consciousness to deeper levels of understanding and experience inexplicable love. When the genocide ended, Immaculee met one of her family’s murderers and was able to forgive him.

How is forgiveness possible in the face of such horrific acts and what exactly is forgiveness? In the most simplistic of terms forgiveness is a willingness to let go of resentment and to stop suffering. I define forgiveness as a voluntary act in which you make a decision to see a situation differently. Instead of seeing a situation through the lens of anger, guilt or fear we see it through the eyes of compassion and understanding. I like to think of forgiveness as the science of the heart, a discipline of discovering all the ways of being that will extend your love to the world and discarding all the ways that do not. On a deeper level forgiveness is about changing the way we think which includes embracing our humanity and spiritual nature and the humanity and spiritual nature of all human beings.

In the Handbook of Forgiveness (Routledge, 2005) an anthology of scientific studies edited by Everett Worthington Jr. experts in the field expose gradations in definitions of forgiveness. In spite of this they all do agree on one thing. Unforgiveness is a state of anger, bitterness and in its extreme form hatred. Forgiveness is a prosocial change in someone’s experience after a transgression. When people choose to forgive, they change.

My question to you is, has there been something in your life in which you were able to forgive and if so, how were you changed?

Forgiveness and a lot more!

The end of a year is always a time of reflection for me. I often think about the meaning of the holiday season and how we can grow in love and forgiveness. The intention of this blog is to begin a dialogue which will help us learn how to grow in consciousness and forgiveness and to understand what this looks like from a spiritual, psychological and neuropsychological perspective.

For the next few weeks I will be sharing some of my thoughts on forgiveness and how it touches not only our personal lives but how when we can hold forgiveness in our hearts we can also be part of the healing of nations. I would like to invite all of you who read this post to share your stories of forgiveness, including your struggles, where you got stuck and how you were able to overcome your difficulties. For those of us who have been able to forgive, sharing our difficulties and the gifts we received in being able to forgive can help inspire others who may be struggling with their own difficulties. What books are you reading, what stories do you have to share, and what cutting edge research to do you know about? I want to hear from you.

I also welcome stories where some of you lived through group violence, genocide or war and how you were able to forgive the unimaginable. You can share any forgiveness story here or submit them to my website www.dreileenborris.com in its entirety. My hope is that for the next few weeks we can go through a journey together and be part of a growing group of people who not only want to change consciousness within themselves but within the rest of humanity. Are you ready?

I also want to invite you to visit the blogs of some wonderful people, all of whom are members of the Arizona Chapter of the National Speakers Association. We are supporting one another in a month long blogathon and their sites are listed below. I do hope that you will visit them. Everyone is an expert in their field and I know you will learn a lot from them and have some fun as well. I encourage you to leave comments since starting a dialogue is how we enrich one another.

Let me know what you think. I look forward to our journey together and to grow in love and forgiveness.


NSA-AZ BLOGATHON 2010

Jackie Dishner
BIKE WITH JACKIE
http://bikewithjackie.blogspot.com

Susan Ratliff, Exhibit Expert
Bling My Booth
http://www.blingmybooth.com

Stephanie Angelo
Human Resource Essential Blog
http://hressential.com/wordpress/

Greg Peterson
Down On The Urban Farm
http://www.yourguidetogreen.com/TheUrbanFarm/

Bonnie Mattick
YourBusinessDetective
http://www.YourBusinessDetective.com

Andrea Beaulieu
True Potential
http://www.TruePotentialBlog.com
Conspiracy of Love
http://www.ConspiracyOfLove.net

Beth Terry
Cactus Wrangler
http://www.CactusWrangler.com

Debra Exner
Collaboration Pays Off
http://collaborationpaysoff.wordpress.com

Deborah M Dubree
I'll have a new name this week
http://www.deborahdubree.com/blog

Eileen Proctor
The Top Dog's Blog
http://thetopdogsblog.blogspot.com/

Mimi Meredith
Bloomin' Blog
http://blog.thegoodnessgrows.com

Suzanne Holman
http://www.suzanneholman.com/blog