The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing — admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; telling one’s story and witnessing the anguish; asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship.
by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu —
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of the Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness — helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation.
Tutu’s role as Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him about forgiveness.
If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath.
Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven.
After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing — admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; telling one’s story and witnessing the anguish; asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship.
Forgiveness is hard work and sometimes even feels like an impossible task.
But it is only through walking this fourfold path, Tutu says, that we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution.
The book is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu’s wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness.
Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.
$25.99 hardcover — HarperOne, An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 333 Sacramento St., Ste. 500, San Francisco, CA 94111-3653.
Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 33, Number 3, June/July 2014.
July 5, 2014
Book review, June/July 2014 Issue