While the attribute of forgiveness sounds good on paper, there are not many instances when I go hunting for ways to practice it.

"Go ahead. Offend me."

It is like fancying myself as an art aficionado, while never darkening the doors of a museum. 

"I love art. Favorite painter? Uh, I can never pick. What's yours?"

If I want to hone my skills as a forgiving person, I should start today. Or last week. 

There is an article about increasing our capacity for forgiveness. It has eight points, which I thought was tidy. Then I started to read them and felt like each one would take a month to master. Or a season. 

One suggestion was to find meaning in our suffering. There have been times when I was hurt and chose to retool the pain. When I came to a friend for comfort and she dismissed my feelings I learned why not to do that. The memory has flickered on at times I was headed toward the same misstep. Would it make sense to say I am grateful to the woman who failed me? I am, if it means I can spare others that loss. 

Once I heard of a woman who granted her husband ten mistakes a day. She mentally refrained from getting upset, knowing that the quota had a limit. The magic showed up because she cultivated a less critical persona, by allowing him elbow room for blunders. By the time he fumbled into the eleventh gaffe, she had enough wind in her sails to extend the grace period. 

Having practiced the minutia of disdain for half a century, it sounds positively bracing.