Forgiving the Unforgivable
My path to freedom began with meditation, and ended at a Texas prison
Thirty years ago a man named John Black* raped and murdered my sister. In May, I visited him in prison and told him that I forgave him.
TOM HUDGENS
The realization that I could actually do such a thing came unbidden. It wasn't something I struggled to attain. I just looked one day and there it was: my own voice saying, 'You can forgive him.' That voice spoke to me often. Eventually, I acted upon it.
Three years ago, after a miserable year in a career that I loved in theory but not in practice, I was struck with the idea of attending a meditation retreat. I typed 'silent meditation retreat' into a search engine, and discovered Spirit Rock Meditation Center, located on 400 acres in Marin County, California.
I hoped that whomever Donald Rothberg was, he would be good.
I arrived excited and ready, and received the traditional insight meditation instructions: 'Sit quietly and comfortably, your spine erect, and follow the sensations of your breath . . . '
I was 9 years old when my family received the news that my 22-year-old sister was murdered. John Black, who was also 22, confessed. He received the death penalty, but the sentence was later commuted to life. Well into adulthood I wanted him dead, believing that, in this case, the death penalty was just.
A month after I attended that first retreat and began meditating, the realization came to me that I could forgive John Black. It was a quiet realization, arising with no fanfare.
About a year later, I attended a second, much larger retreat, presided by Sylvia Boorstein and Christopher Titmuss. During a Q A-type forum where people were checking in, I heard a powerful 'inquiry' — a woman bravely explained she was so beset with fear for her family in this unbalanced world that she was considering buying a gun.
I couldn't logically connect the notion of forgiving my sister's murderer with this woman's fear, but my realization became, in that moment, very, very insistent. Before, it had knocked on my door very quietly; now it was pounding.
A day or so later, my whole body shaking, I inquired of Christopher Titmuss: 'Can I trust this realization to forgive? Does it mean I really need to do it?'
His reply was a cut-to-the-chase question: 'Will you do it?'
'Oh yes,' I said.
If I could have just walked into that maximum-security prison, invisible, through the security fences, the tightly-coiled razor wire, past the guards, through the heavy, polished brass doors, through a succession of locked gates, up to the 'dorm' on Floor 6 and just sat down with John Black and talked with him, offering forgiveness, then turned around and invisibly walked out, I would have. But that wasn't possible.
I discovered a 'Victim-Offender Dialogue' program administered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The program provides a structured, safe 'space' in which victims (or, in my case, close relatives of deceased victims) go to the prison and meet with offenders face-to-face, with a mediator present.
'Something we recommend,' the young woman told me on the phone, 'is to write the offender a letter, telling him what you hope to get from the meeting.'
A month or two went by. Finally, I wrote:
I wasn't assigned a mediator for almost a year.Hello John. This may be hard to believe, but I come to you in a spirit of peace, compassion, and understanding. I loved my beautiful, dancing, dark-haired sister very much. I was 9-years-old when you took her from the world. Her sudden death, at your young hands, was deeply tragic and traumatic to the many of us who knew and loved her. We still remember her vividly and honor those memories . . . If you would like to know more about her, I will gladly tell you.
But I want you to know that I am willing to listen to whatever you wish to tell me. If you would like to tell me about your young life before the crime, I will listen. If you would like to talk about that night, February 27th, 1978, I will listen. If you would like to talk about 30 years in prison, I will listen.
Any questions you want to ask me, I will answer as completely and honestly as I am able. There is nothing specific that I need to hear from you: in meeting with you, I am not attached to any particular outcome. I'm doing this because this is the kind of world I want to live in, where people can come together and talk and come to deeper understandings . . . I wish you well, John.
Sincerely, Tom
April 27, 2007.
I knew very little about John Black. When I reached 22 years of age, some 17 years ago, I traveled to a courthouse in Austin, Texas, and read the transcript of the trial. Black's confession was blunt. I saw a picture of him — just an ordinary-looking, white guy with glasses. His signature was in grammar-school cursive.
In the Texas penal system, the victim and/or family initiates the mediation/dialogue. But the offender has to agree to the process. It is entirely voluntary. He could back out at any time, as could I.
Neither of us did.
*Some names have been changed to protect family members
NEXT: Readying my heart to meet my sister's murderer
I want to thank Tom Hudgens for sharing this amazing story with us. It is well written, heartfelt and made me feel hopeful for a world where as he describes his wishes: “……I want to live in, where people can come together and talk and come to deeper understandings.” Beautifully said.
I was deeply touched by his descriptions of John Black. Clearly, Tom’s heart was open when he attended this meeting and this allowed him to see John Black for who he was that day not the day he murdered his sister. I was equally touched by John Black’s statement about Tom’s sister: “I think, through you, your sister still has something yet to say to me.” What a powerful awareness to have and how brave to be open to hearing not only from the sister’s living brother but also from the sister he had murdered. This says to me he had taken full responsibility for his actions and was willing to bear the full weight of hearing of the pain he had caused. Through Tom’s willingness to meet with John it would appear they both received healing.
The divine timing of it all is a miracle in and of itself. I loved how Tom showed the magical sychronicity when he said: “He delivered his first sermon three years ago, the same year I began meditating at Spirit Rock in Marin County, California. The subject: reconciliation.”
I have taken so many things away from this reading and one of the most important is the reminder to stay with the mystery. In the words of Tim Hudgen:
“Learning to live with mystery is, to me, an important aspect of any spiritual path.” WOW!! What a wonderful reminder and Tom had you just said this to me and not shared the intimate details of your path to forgiveness these words would not have been as meaningful to me. Your forgiveness was not conditional, not based on “facts” that would help you make sense of it all. This is a very powerful lesson about the mind. It thinks it needs data to understand, to decide what to do next when what it needs is trust and in my opinion guidance from spirit.
Thank you! and thank you Soul Code I love this site. I will be recommending it to my friends.
Namaste
Jonina
amazing story…read something recently that probably is applicable here…”forgiveness does not mean what you did is ok to me…it simply means i am no longer willing to carry around pain in response to your actions”…
i almost cried like a million times
Hi Tom,
Your heart rending tale of forgiveness will always stay in my heart and would always serve as a beacon light!
Thank you very much for having the courage to share your own story with all of us!
God bless you!
Best Regards,
Sagira. J
India
Hi Tom,
To err is human and to forgive is divine!!! Tom, you have set a great example to mankind.
Wish you luck and God bless you always – Take care
Regards,
Varsha
India
Hmm. Well. I was raped, and I think you’re full of CRAP. It’s very easy for people who have never been through trauma to sit and tell you how wise you are: I think you’re an idiot. Forgiveness means to stop letting another person’s toxicity affect you. You can do that without going head-to-head with a murderer. I noticed that you told him more about your sister. WHY? Does he deserve to know, simply because he raped and murdered her?
But maybe you’re on to something. I should send my rapist a newsletter. You know. Just so he knows I haven’t forgotten.
I hope you realize that sociopaths get off on attention like that. If you felt the need to forgive – fine. But when you contacted him, you were playing into his hands. I’m sure he was bored in his cell 24/7 and jumped for joy when he found out he had the opportunity to relive it and rehash the details – with one of her family members – who wanted to FORGIVE HIM!
Sociopath – 1
Tom – 0
Dear Tom
May your heart and soul be filled with happiness. Everyone has the right to feel free of burdening and confusing emotions. I am sorry for your loss. But at the same time, what you did very few people can.
Bless you
praseena
Dear Tom,
I thank you very much for sharing your greatness of spirit, shown in your act of forgiveness. It is so much easier to blame and be a victim, and so much more freeing to see the high perspective where we are love and light, and act from that. We all behave in hurtful ways, each time we forget that love in our heart.
Thank you again,
With love & kindness
Marlise
My only problem with this story is that the offender was very forgivable. He was repentent, open, and kind. The title to this article is misleading. There is a huge difference when somebody doesn’t want to be forgiven or doesn’t care if you forgive them.
In this story, he author gets closure by talking to the offender in an edifying way. But, if the offender doesn’t want to talk to the offended and hates the offended, what closure can there be in this manner? You can forgive all day long, but when there is no closure, no admission of guilt, no remorse from the offender, that’s a very different thing and a much harder pill to swallow for the offended. This article doesn’t address that, which is what I was hoping for. It’s a feel good hollywood movie story. I can’t draw much from it for myself and apply it to the heinous, real world things I have met with in my life. Life is more gritty than this swill. Other than that, it was well written.
June 28, 1976. I was 16. My sister 18. Her boyfriend took a risky move driving and she died. She had basically left home to live with him, and had not reconciled with my parents or me before she left without notice, about three weeks earlier. I had seen her since, but not my parents.
Two weeks ago, I am back home, visiting my mom. I was teaching her about how to add friends into Facebook. One of his sisters came into the conversation. And what’s he doing, I ask. Oh, he lives in town she said. He has two grown daughters.
I know my mother very well. She never had any anger toward him. She certainly missed her daughter, my sister. We’d cried plenty over her being gone. But never any anger toward him. We were sad for him, but never any anger or blame.
The moment talking about him passed. No drama or workshops or epiphany.
My conclusion is this: the forgiveness is not for the other person.
My life gave me several chances to relearn this. One that comes to mind is when I was beaten beyond recognition at age 21 in the process of getting my car stolen. I had flashbacks and nightmares for years following. After all the adrenalin and years passed, the only thing that gave me any peace was forgiving the person that I knew I would never see again.
Eckhart Tolle’s book Awakening describes my experience better than I can. You can read that if you or someone you know it trying to forgive.