Forgiveness News
The Forgiveness Story That Went Around the World
York Daily Record, York, PA – What do you do when your lives are shattered and you don’t want to see tomorrow?
That’s the question Terri and Chuck Roberts faced on Oct. 2, 2006–the day their son shot 10 girls, killing five, before taking his own life at the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room Amish schoolhouse in Lancaster County, PA. They found the answer, Terri says, in the Amish faith and forgiveness.
Roberts said she and her husband thought they could never face their Amish neighbors again. The day of the shooting, however, their Amish neighbor Henry came to their house and stood behind Chuck, rubbing his shoulders and consoling him, she recalled. When she and her family buried her son, the first parents to greet them at the graveside were Amish parents who had lost not one but two daughters in the shooting.
In that action, she saw the depth of the Amish community’s faith and the breadth of their forgiveness. The speed in which the Amish community forgave both the shooter and his family was “the forgiveness story that went around the world. People were able to forgive because the Amish could,” Roberts said.
Roberts started inviting the five surviving school girls and their mothers to picnics and tea parties at her house just three months after the shootings. At one get-together, she learned that Mary Liz King had a harder road than the rest of the mothers: Her daughter, Rosanna, never fully recovered and remains paralyzed. From that day on, Roberts started visiting Rosanna, now 11, weekly. She bathes her and brushes her hair, cleans her bedclothes, talks to her, sings to her, and reads Bible stories. Though at first she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to continue, Roberts now finds peace in those visits. “As we reach out in ways that bring a touch, we can find great healing,” she says.
Read more: “5 Years Later, Mother Cares for Son’s Amish Victim” (www.newser.com). The role forgiveness can play in alleviating anger and grief and the physical, mental and spiritual benefits that come with it are vividly outlined in “The Power of Forgiveness,” a documentary film by Martin Doblmeier that features a segment on the Amish.
Father Begs for Mercy for Son’s Killer
The Morning Call, Allentown, PA – The father shook uncontrollably in court Friday, distraught over his son’s death in a car accident a year ago. That happens often.
Then the father begged a judge for mercy for his son’s killer. That’s rare.
“Some people deserve to be caged up and some people deserve a second chance,” Greg Hamell told a Lehigh County Judge. “Allow a little bit of forgiveness for this young man here. Give the family a second chance, I ask your honor.”
Authorities say Alexander Buskirk was driving 63 mph in a 35 mph zone on Nov. 23, 2011, when he lost control and crashed into trees, killing Greg Hamell’s 18-year-old son, Ryan. Buskirk and Hamell had graduated together months earlier from Northwestern Lehigh High School.
Ryan Hamell’s mother, Jeanette Hamell, asked the judge to sentence Buskirk to house arrest, and not jail.
“I want Alex to know I forgive him,” the mother said, as people throughout the courtroom cried. “I want him to forgive himself. I want him to live a full life.”
At the end of the hearing, Buskirk walked up to Greg Hamell and the two hugged for several moments, exchanging words. Buskirk then hugged Jeanette Hamell. Both cried before separating and leaving the courthouse. One soon headed to jail. Both hoping to heal.
Read the full story: “Father begs for mercy for son’s killer.”
Mother’s “I Forgive You” Reduces Sentence for Man Convicted of Manslaughter
CBS Evening News, Tallahassee, Florida – When Eric Smallridge was convicted of DUI manslaughter in 2003, Renee Napier, who lost her daughter, was ambivalent about forgiving. Yet, over time, her sense of forgiveness deepened to such a degree that she went to the authorities and asked that Smallridge’s sentence be reduced. He was released last week, long before he was expected to be released. He and Renee now go into high schools together, warning students about the dangers of drinking and driving. Forgiveness as a gift to Eric has become an indirect gift to students, who are given important information on driver safety.
Read the full story: “Mother’s forgiveness gives convict second chance.”
Returning Exiles Show Capacity for Forgiveness in Myanmar
Los Angeles Times, Yangon, Myanmar – Maung Thura, a comedian known as Zarganar, spent 11 years in prison including five in solitary confinement for his open criticism of the repression he witnessed in Myanmar while the country was under military rule. Released in 2011 after the military junta was dissolved, Zarganar now expresses forgiveness rather than rancor for his former captors.
“This is not a time for revenge,” he said. “Otherwise, it becomes a circular motion that never ends.”
According to a variety of sources, Zarganar’s willingness to forgive–seemingly incomprehensible to many outsiders–is shared by thousands of dissidents and student leaders released from prisons or invited back to Myanmar, also known as Burma, after years in exile.
This flexibility on both sides offers hope the country can move more quickly toward national reconciliation, avoiding a settling of scores and crippling divisions seen in other countries struggling to emerge from decades of totalitarian rule.
Read more about the role of forgiveness in Myanmar in the Los Angeles Times article “In Myanmar, returning exiles show capacity for forgiveness.”
One Woman’s Path to Forgiving the Unforgiveable
Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN – In 1973, Marietta Jaeger Lane’s 7-year-old daughter, Susie, was kidnapped from her tent in the middle of the night on a family camping trip to Montana. It was not until a year later that the kidnapper was caught and confessed, not just to killing Susie, but to the murders of three other children. Lane visited the man in jail, just before he hanged himself. He was 26.
After finally being able to bury Susie on a beautiful October afternoon in 1974, Lane drove to the home of the man’s mother.
“I wanted to tell her I had forgiven David, the David she knew who cut her lawn and took her shopping,” she said. “We just held each other and wept, two mothers who had lost their children.”
Lane has since become a sought-after speaker on forgiveness.
“You have every right to your initial rage and grief,” says Lane, the mother of four adult children. “Forgiveness takes daily, diligent discipline. It’s not for wimps. But hatred isn’t healthy. Forgiveness sets us free.”
Read more about Lane’s forgiveness work in “One Woman’s Path to Forgive Unforgiveable”
