Forgiveness: Following Jesus into Radical Loving

Paraclete Press (MA), January 2009. Hardcover. As New/Very Good. Forgiveness, Paula Huston reminds us, stands at the center of the Gospel message, from oft-repeated words of the Lord's Prayer to Christ's final words on the Cross. The emphasis on loving those who do us wrong may well be what sets Christianity apart, ultimately, from other religions. Yet the road we must travel in order to realize true forgiveness is far from easy: in the end, Huston contends, it forces us to face our egos, our separation from God, and dark parts of ourselves that we would hide at all costs. As Huston guides her readers along this difficult path, she blends funny, heartbreaking (and wrenchingly honest) stories from her own experience with wisdom from C.S. Lewis, Hannah Arendt, Kierkegaard, Elie Wiesel, and Dostoevsky's novels. The chapters on 'preparing ourselves to forgive' draw heavily on the early church, especially the Desert Fathers' disciplines of guarding the heart and watching vigilantly over the thoughts. Only by undertaking the laborious task of knowing ourselves - our self-centered motives, our desire for moral superiority - can we avoid the recurrent pitfalls of self-justification, on the one hand, and false forgiveness (simply making ourselves feel better) on the other. Huston's easy, conversational narrative transforms the simple, yet daunting topic of forgiveness into a finely drawn roadmap whose beginning and end is never in doubt: God's incomparable mercy, pouring healing down upon a fallen, broken world. 298 pp. Book in New condition, jacket shows very light wear.