UPDATE: Manson follower denied compassionate release

[Giselle]

Those who flaunt their religion and use it as a form of elitism are not following their supposed faith. I have met my fair share of those folks, too, and I agree with you on that.

However, above all, Jesus preached for compassion and honoring a person's dignity. In modern terms, I do believe MLK summed it up best in his speech "Loving Your Enemies". You do not need to passionately love or even LIKE your enemies. But you do need to love them as God supposedly loves and unconditionally forgives us. Hate and cruelty only bring about more hate and cruelty. The only thing with which to eliminate hate is love.

A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points.
-MLK Jr

This woman committed an unspeakably cruel and heinous crime, but she is human. In all evil, there is good. If we truly understand and believe in our religion, we would see the inherent humanity and dignity in this woman and grant her compassion. And, by virtue of our love, we would hopefully urge this woman to see the gravity of her cruelty and the brevity of her life. And, hopefully, she would feel guilt and repent.

...But, wait, I'm not Christian I don't like the way Catholicism has become. I guess you can call me a Gandhi-ist or MLK-ist. I much prefer their views (which are all actually pretty fundamentally Christian) =)

[Catty1]

http://www.harbeck.ca/cww/cww_080709.html

Read this article, and check out the link at the bottom.


Annette Stanwick is the author of “Forgiveness: the Mystery and Miracle,” in which she discusses a journey that started with the murder of her brother. Photo by Warren Harbeck


Forgiveness has consistently been one of the most popular topics addressed in this column. Especially when wrongdoing has involved the death of loved ones, how is it possible for those left behind to forgive the killer? How do they deal with their pain, anger, bitterness and a desire for revenge? The 2006 example of a Pennsylvania Amish community’s forgiving response to the murder of five of their school-age girls stunned many (see my columns of Oct. 11, 18, 25, and Nov. 1, 2006).

All this came back to me the other day at Cochrane’s Java Jamboree as I listened to one of our newest coffee companions recount the story of how she learned to forgive the murderers of her brother.

Annette Stanwick, a prominent Calgary eye clinic executive and pastor’s wife, and more recently an award-winning author and motivation speaker urging audiences to discover the freedom of forgiveness, was crushed nine years ago at the news that her brother, Soren, a long-haul truck driver, was assaulted and murdered while on the job far from home. A robbery gone terribly downhill.

“I thought my heart would stop,” she said.

At the sentencing of Travis Friend, the first to be held accountable for the murder, she gave a victim impact statement that shocked everyone in the courtroom. After speaking of the enormous hole the murderer had left in her brother’s family and of how she herself struggled with the “unfathomable . . . notion that the ultimate atrocity of taking his life could be necessary for a few measly possessions,” she looked intently into the murderer’s eyes and proceeded:

“Travis, I want you to know that the most important impact of this whole experience for me is that God has given me a new understanding of love and forgiveness.

“Travis, God has impressed me that: He doesn’t love what you did, but he loves you in spite of what you have done. He loves you with a love that will never end and he longs to show you that love. He loves you just as much as he loves me and just as much as he loves my brother Soren. There is nothing so deep, so dark and so horrible, that he cannot and will not forgive. And he longs to forgive you for what you have done, Travis.

“Here in the quietness of this moment I am offering God’s love and forgiveness to you, Travis,” she said, and then added, “and I am also offering you my love and forgiveness.”

It was not some whim or outburst of sentimentality that brought her to this moment, Annette told me. No, it was the conclusion to a long journey of prayerful introspection, scripture study, wise words from friends, and her experience of the love and forgiveness of God in her own life.

Last year she published a book about the details of that journey, Forgiveness: the Mystery and Miracle. In it she writes about her courtroom words of forgiveness:

“I learned an important lesson that day. If I had refused to forgive Travis, I would have continued being a victim. I would have been shackled in chains just like Travis, only my chains would have been around my heart and my spirit. I too would have been in prison – the prison of fear, anger and unforgiveness.”

For his crime the judge sentenced the murderer to life in prison without chance for parole. As for Annette, “I left the courthouse a changed woman,” she said. “I was free.”

For the whole story of what brought this grieving sister to her moment of forgiveness, I urge you to pick up a copy of Forgiveness: the Mystery and Miracle, available in Cochrane at Bentleys Books, or on line at www.annettestanwick.com.

© 2008 Warren Harbeck
[email protected]

Return to Coffee With Warren home page

http://www.theforgivenessproject.com/

[RICHARD]

Before we spin off into another direction?


I don't think anyone can forgive her from what she did.

I can't and probably don't.

My point is all about her condition.

Is one "prison" year equal to a life? Two, three?

Do we add years for an unborn child? Subtract from a term for years that the person has lived?

We set those sentences according to the person or people who want it the penalties in place.

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I am not a terrible religious person, but I see where Ms. Stanwick is coming from.

I think that ultimately forgiveness comes from your heart. If you can muster it up in the absence of your own god, that works just as well.

[Giselle]

Oh, of course, Richard! I don't consider myself religious. Spiritual, perhaps. Religious, no. I still try to live up to those spiritual standards of honoring others' dignity and trying to forgive those who wrong me and loving my enemies. I do; really, I try

But I was just a little miffed by the Buddhism comment, because the age old adage of "love thy enemy" and of forgiveness does not only apply to Buddhists. It is an old tradition amongst Christians, as well, and I had a hinting that many of our posters are Christian. I just thought I'd point out that the whole compassion/forgiveness/love thing is a central Christian idea, as well, so maybe that would lead us all to reconsider whether or not we should grant this woman compassion.

I admit. If this woman had killed one of my family members, I probably would not have the strength to forgive her because it does take an enormous amount of strength and fortitude. Ah, well. I'm still working on that.

(By the way, for more "forgiving thy mother/father/brother's murderers" stories, check out Immaculee Ilibagiza's book "Left to Tell". I met her personally and she's a pretty amazing woman.)

[jennielynn1970]

I wasn't trying to offend anyone by the Buddhist comment. I just see that religion as more being a pacifist than, say, Christian. Although I'm not sure any religion is completely into being peaceful and pacifists, not that any of them really show it any more.
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People have done, and continue to do terrible things in the name of God. Any God, and I'm talking almost all religions. Look how many wars are started and people are killed in the name of God or a God or Gods(depending on the religion).

I just can't see how any God would want someone to kill others in his/their name. It's really not my job, or anyone else's job, to judge a person in the name of any God.

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I guess the more I look at what the woman is going through, who are we to say she isn't suffering more, or that she hasn't already been punished enough. With everything you lose when you enter the prison system, when it's for the long haul... it really is like someone losing their life.

What people do angers me. When they harm the innocent, it angers me. And what I feel inside about what they have done, and are continuing to do, it scares me, because I know the rage I feel inside, and I don't want to end up going out and beating the crap out of someone and possibly killing them because of the injustice and inhumanity I feel that they have shown. What does that make me?? It just puts me on their level. It makes me as dirty as them.

So, I don't condone harm or senseless acts of violence on any innocent individual or creature, and I know it's not my job to judge him, because who am I, compared to any God out there. I am nothing, and I am certainly not with out sins. If we all start to judge everyone, no one will survive.


I don't want to be in the position where I'd have to make that decision, if I would have made a decision out of anger, and in hatred. I don't know that I could live with myself if I actually condemned anyone to a life of pain and misery and isolation from all they love.



It just gets too convoluted. I can't say that I would feel the same if it were my family. I dont' think I'd want to be involved in getting someone locked away. I would want to understand why they did what they did. What happened in their lives that led them to that final decision. Part of me just feels that there has to be something that completely influenced a person's life to have made them so irrations that they would do these kids of things.

I know this is a ramble. It's 3am. But I'm trying to get it out so that it's lucid and readable.


I don't know what I'd say should be done to those who have harmed innocent babies and children animals. Or what about those who are in gangs and are going and killing and creating as many graves as humanly possible on each side of their "lines". Are they the same? Can you say that either of their sides are "innocent" when they all just want to kill eachother??

I keep watching Nat Geo and all the specials on things like this, and then I watch Linktv.org(the most wonderful channel on all of TV), and I just think that there's so much that everyone takes into their hearts and it hurts everyone on all different kinds of levels, and at somepoint, we're going to have the Iranian Gang coming in and attackign the USA "Gang" and it's going to go back and forth, and how they and we will take on allies, and it will be one big gang war all over the world, and peple will have to pledge their allegiances to one gang or the other or get killed.

I just see it all escalating. Gang wars all over the world, but it's country gangs against another country gang, and they will all bring their own gods into the mix, and from there....

It all goes to hell. And in the end, the Gods are all crying, because this is not what they had ever wanted in their wildest dreams.

[Giselle]

True, I guess modern Buddhism is more pacifist than modern Christianity, but I think that depends more on how the two religions have been manipulated than their underlying fundamentals.

I just see it all escalating. Gang wars all over the world, but it's country gangs against another country gang, and they will all bring their own gods into the mix, and from there....

It all goes to hell.

And what can combat these cycles of hate but love?

I am nowhere near as intelligent or eloquent as MLK, so I'll leave it up to these last words:
"It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies."

[RICHARD]

"It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. That’s why Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem and to transform your enemies. But if you love your enemies, you will discover that at the very root of love is the power of redemption. You just keep loving people and keep loving them, even though they’re mistreating you. Here’s the person who is a neighbor, and this person is doing something wrong to you and all of that. Just keep being friendly to that person. Keep loving them. Don’t do anything to embarrass them. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with bitterness because they’re mad because you love them like that. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So love your enemies."

Funny, it takes one person out of how many that walked the earth to figure out how to explain that in one paragraph.