| VCU expert has work tested in his own life |
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Professor studying forgiveness faces 2 family tragedies
Monday, Feb 11, 2008 - 12:08 AM
By KARIN KAPSIDELIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
When an intruder killed his mother in her home, Dr. Everett Worthington was able to work through his grief and find forgiveness. Ten years later, when his brother took his own life from the unrelenting anguish of having found her body, the Virginia Commonwealth University psychology professor faced an even more painful challenge: self-forgiveness. Forgiveness -- of ourselves and others -- and how it can heal the body and the soul was the message that drew more than 250 people to the Virginia Holocaust Museum yesterday. They came for a screening and discussion of the "The Power of Forgiveness," a documentary by Journey Films that PBS will broadcast in March. No Richmond-area air dates have been scheduled. The film, which has been shown at Virginia Tech, the United Nations and elsewhere, explores stories of forgiveness on multiple levels -- from the Holocaust and Sept. 11 to an Amish community's forgiveness of the man who killed five of their daughters at a schoolhouse. The film includes scenes of Worthington talking to his VCU students about a proposal for a garden of forgiveness at ground zero in New York and helping them through their own personal issues by using role-playing. And it shows images of his mother's ransacked house on the night she was killed. Martin Doblmeier, the film's director, told the audience that Worthington is "one of the most important people in the forgiveness universe." As part of his work with couples therapy, Worthington was already a leading researcher on the benefits of forgiveness when his mother was killed in Knoxville, Tenn., on New Year's Eve 1995. "Within 24 hours, I was able to forgive whoever did it," he said in an interview before the screening. But forgiving himself for not being able to help his younger brother through his depression has been far more difficult. Although his brother's suicide is not mentioned in the documentary, Worthington said it is an issue with which he still struggles. Speaking out about his mother's murder -- "working out my grief in a public way" -- gave him the chance to honor her by sharing her story and values. His previous research on forgiveness was "an incredible gift" that helped him through the loss, he said. It has given him a new focus for his research. "My personal mission statement is to bring forgiveness into every willing heart, home and homeland," he said. "We encounter the opportunity to forgive or to not forgive every day," he said. "We keep needing a booster shot to forgive. . . . I think this [film] is a booster shot." Worthington said forgiving others has proven health benefits. But his research has found a more long-lasting benefit comes when people forgive "to bless and free the person who wronged" them. "That's not an easy sell," especially when there is no closure through justice, he noted. Worthington himself had to overcome that "injustice gap." No one was ever convicted in the murder of his mother. A teen who confessed later recanted. At one point Worthington was told erroneously that the suspect had been killed in a bar fight in California. Researchers working on the documentary found the suspect is alive. "Finding out he was alive jarred me for a moment," Worthington said. But it didn't do so in the way it might have for most people. "It actually set me back when I thought the person had been killed," he said. "I had always hoped and prayed he would come to his senses and turn to a life of repentance."
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