Rev. Celeste Shakti Hill Forgivness   What came to me for this issue’s Good News is Forgiveness. Forgiveness is a powerful and challenging practice, but one worth working on. Anything that ties us to old wounds in a negative way saps us of life energy. Forgiving is not condoning, it is the personal power to release and transform the pain that imprisons us. Let us make room for forgiveness so that our inner love and light can shine.   Namaste'   To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was You. -- Unknown       A Child's grace and forgiveness inspired Boston   5-year-old Kai Leigh Harriott looked up from her wheelchair in the hushed courtroom and faced the man who fired the stray gunshot that paralyzed her nearly three years ago. "What you done to me was wrong," the dimpled girl with purple and yellow plastic ties in her braids said softly. "But I still forgive (you)."   On a summer night in 2003, Anthony Warren fired three gunshots into the air outside a three-decker in Dorchester to scare two women who lived on the first floor after an argument. One bullet severed the spine of Kai, then 3, who was sitting outside on her family's third-story porch. Yesterday, in emotionally wrenching victim-impact statements that left many spectators in tears, Kai and four members of her family told a Suffolk Superior Court judge that the shooting had changed their lives forever, but had also shown them the value of forgiveness. ''We're not victims here; we're victors," said Kai's mother, Tonya David, addressing the court.   Moments later, Warren, a convicted felon, approached Kai and her family and, in barely audible tones, apologized. David recalled his words later. ''I'm sorry for what I've done to you and your family," she said Warren told her. 'David shook his handcuffed right hand and embraced him. Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford called the statements the most moving she had heard in 17 years on the bench.   From The Boston Globe       Forgiveness Is NOT... a sign of weakness, ignorance, or low self-esteem. forgetting the past and putting ourselves at risk again. repressing our anger and pretending we haven’t been hurt. refusing to hold people accountable for their behavior. Forgiveness Is... something to do for yourself, not for the perpetrator. the only way to truly move on from a deep wrong or injustice. the greatest healer of all, and the ultimate preventive medicine. an act of the heart that heals not only ourselves, but the world. From www.worldforgivenessinitiative.org       The Healthy Art of Forgiving   Holding grudges may be part of human nature, but recent studies show that it works to the detriment not just of spiritual well-being but of our physical health as well. Bitterness, anger, hostility, and fear are emotions that have specific physiologic consequences—such as increased blood pressure and hormonal changes—linked to cardiovascular disease, immune suppression and impaired neurological function.   On the flip side, research reveals how forgiveness can work to reduce the stress of the unforgiving state. Researcher Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet, advocates that forgiveness should be incorporated into one's way of life, not merely a response to specific insults. In other words, it has to be cultivated. "It's a process, not a moment," says Dr. Edward M. Hallowell, a Harvard psychiatrist and the author of "Dare to Forgive".   From Newsweek       Forgiveness can be Learned   Each time we witness an act of forgiveness, we marvel at its power to heal, to break a seemingly unending cycle of pain. Forgiveness is something virtually all Americans aspire to -- 94% surveyed in a nationwide Gallup poll said it was important to forgive -- but it is not something we frequently offer. (In the same survey, only 48% said they usually tried to forgive others.) Perhaps this is because forgiveness is something we don't fully understand; we associate forgiveness with weakness. Or perhaps we view forgiveness as an almost saintly quality that imbues only the very special and most certainly cannot be learned.   In fact, the opposite is true. Those who have studied it can tell you without qualification that forgiveness is a sign of strength. And research conducted at the University of Wisconsin in 1997 indicates forgiveness can be taught and with positive results.   From www.forgiving.org