Silver Medal Winner in the Essays category of the 2015 Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards What is forgiveness? Are some acts unforgivable? Can forgiveness take the place of revenge? Powerful real-life stories from survivors and perpetrators of crime and violence reveal the true impact of forgiveness on ordinary people worldwide. Exploring forgiveness as an alternative to resentment or retaliation, the storytellers give an honest, moving account of their experiences and what part forgiveness has played in their lives. Despite extreme circumstances, their stories open the door to a society without revenge. All royalties from the sale of this book go to The Forgiveness Project charity.

All religions value forgiveness, but only Christianity requires it. Internalizing anger is destructive to our spiritual health and can destroy families, marriages, and even churches. But what about our physical health? Is there a relationship between a spirit of unforgiveness and cancer? Between forgiveness and healing? How do you really forgive? After thorough medical, theological, and sociological research and clinical experience at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), author and pastor Michael Barry has made a startling discovery: the immune system and forgiveness are very much connected. Through the inspiring stories of five cancer patients, Barry helps readers identify—and overcome—the barriers that prevent healing and peace. See how a breast cancer patient named Jayne experienced spiritual and physical renewal when she learned to forgive. Meet Cathy whose story illustrates how forgiveness can positively change relationships. Be inspired by Sharon’s story of spontaneous remission. With each true account comes proven strategies, tested and used by CTCA, that readers can implement to find peace with their past, relief from their hatefulness, and hope for healing. Competing titles may talk about forgiveness, but none specifically address the connection between forgiveness and physical health or offer forgiveness as a specific step toward healing from cancer. The Forgiveness Project presents scientific findings in easy to-understand, accessible language and offers practical steps to help Christians let go of past wrongs and find peace.

What is forgiveness? What enables people to forgive? Why do we even choose to forgive those who have harmed us? What can the latest psychological research tell us about the nature of forgiveness, its benefits and risks? This imaginative comic explores the key aspects of forgiveness, asking what it means to forgive and to be forgiven. Witty and intelligent, it answers questions about the health benefits and restorative potential of forgiveness and explains, in easy-to-understand terms, what happens in our brains, bodies and communities when we choose to forgive.

Thirty-three years ago Kelly Connor was a carefree 17-year-old with her life ahead of her. One sunny morning in Perth, Australia, she borrowed her father's car to travel to work, having recently passed her driving test. But this very ordinary trip was soon to be marred by horror. Driving on a clear road, Kelly knocked down and killed an elderly pedestrian. Although she avoided convictions of manslaughter and reckless driving, the incident was to have a powerful impact on her life. Kelly soon discovered that family and friends did not want to talk about what had happened, while she, in contrast, began to be haunted by the event. So began a cycle of profound inner experiences, visions, and outer life changes. To Cause a Death is the remarkable true story of the aftermath of an accidental killing, written from the point of view of the person who caused the accident. It traces Kelly Connor's life from the depths of despair, sojourns in mental hospitals and a failed suicide attempt, to a path of personal and spiritual development. It shows how the passage of the author's life has allowed her to come to some comprehension of the tragic accident of her youth.While much has been written by relatives and friends of victims, little material exists on the impact on the perpetrators. This book is essential reading for anybody concerned with the challenge of inner growth and the trials of life.

Thirteen of Reaksa Himm's immediate family, including both his parents, were executed by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot. The young killers marched them from the remote northern village to which they had been exiled, out into the jungle. One by one the machetes fell. Severely wounded, Reaksa was covered by the bodies of his family. His remarkable story of survival is told in 'The Tears of My Soul'. In this second book he describes how he tracked down his family's killers, one by one, embraced them, gave them a scarf of friendship and presented each with a Bible. He has also funded and had built a clinic, school and five churches in the area. This is an astonishing tale of the consequences of spiritual rebirth.

In Original Forgiveness, Nicolas de Warren challenges the widespread assumption that forgiveness is always a response to something that has incited it. Rather than considering forgiveness exclusively in terms of an encounter between individuals or groups after injury, he argues that availability for the possibility of forgiveness represents an original forgiveness, an essential condition for the prospect of human relations. De Warren develops this notion of original forgiveness through a reflection on the indispensability of trust for human existence, as well as an examination of the refusal or unavailability to forgive in the aftermath of moral harms. De Warren engages in a critical discussion of philosophical figures, including Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Mikhail Bakhtin, Edmund Husserl, Gabriel Marcel, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean Améry, and of literary works by William Shakespeare, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Heinrich von Kleist, Simon Wiesenthal, Herman Melville, and Maurice Sendak. He uses this discussion to show that in trusting another person, we must trust in ourselves to remain available to the possibility of forgiveness for those occasions when the other person betrays a trust, without thereby forgiving anything in advance. Original forgiveness is to remain the other person’s keeper—even when the other has caused harm. Likewise, being another’s keeper calls upon an original beseeching for forgiveness, given the inevitable possibility of blemish or betrayal.

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! “[The Gift of Forgiveness] will spark conversations across families, across friendships, at workplaces, everywhere.” –Maria Shriver A fresh, inspiring book on learning how to forgive, with firsthand stories from those who have learned to let go of resentment and find peace. "When we learn to embrace forgiveness, it opens us up to healing, hope, and a new world of possibility." --Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt Written with grace and understanding and based on more than twenty in-depth interviews and stories as well as personal reflections from Schwarzenegger Pratt herself, The Gift of Forgiveness is about one of the most difficult challenges in life--learning to forgive. Here, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt shows us what we can learn from those who have struggled with forgiveness, some still struggling, and others who have been able to forgive what might seem truly unforgivable. The book features experiences from those well-known and unknown, including Elizabeth Smart, who learned to forgive her captors; Sue Klebold, whose son, Dylan, was one of the Columbine shooters, learning empathy and how to forgive herself; Chris Williams, who forgave the drunken teenager who killed his wife and child; and of course Schwarzenegger Pratt's own challenges and path to forgiveness in her own life. All provide different journeys to forgiveness and the process--sometimes slow and thorny, sometimes almost instantaneous--by which they learned to forgive and let go. The Gift of Forgiveness is a perfect blend of personal insights, powerful quotations, and hard-won wisdom for those seeking a way to live with greater acceptance, grace, and peace. A PAMELA DORMAN BOOKS/VIKING LIFE TITLE