The practice of forgiveness calls us willingly to do things with and for one another so that communion can be restored. Forgiveness works through our ongoing willingness to give up certain claims against one another, to give the truth when we assess our relationships with one another, and to give gifts of ourselves by making innovative gestures that offer a future not bound by the past. Being forgiven requires an ongoing willingness to honor a new claim that has been made on us, to speak with a new truthfulness, and to live in a new way with one another.

L. Gregory Jones, Practicing Our Faith by Dorothy C. Bass, editor