One way of understanding forgiveness is as the ability to accept reality for being what is, rather than what we would have it be. All of us face an addiction to our own ways of thinking and myopic visions of a “perfect world” (which, if we’re honest, is usually a world which has “myself” as its center). Forgiveness is so critical to Jesus’ way and teaching precisely because it moves our own egos off center-stage and open for us the possibility of participating in a larger, more inclusive vision.

Contemplative practices, especially Centering Prayer, are natural schools of forgiveness. The various thoughts that present themselves to us during a prayer period, like pretty much everything else that life presents to us, are what they are, leaving us with no control over whether they are happy or sad, persistent or passing – they simply are. As we practice our prayer, we gradually learn to allow the reality of our thoughts. We can forgive them, and we can forgive ourselves for the recurring pattens of thought from which we struggle to break, because we were never meant to be in control, of our thoughts or anything else! Rather, when we forgive our thoughts, we yield to the higher Power and bigger Vision that has always been in control. Now we are free to participate in the vision.