Murder As A Call to Love

Murder As a Call to Love–the first book by a survivor of a family mass murder to identify mindfulness as her turning point toward forgiveness and love.The young man who murders the author’s sister-in-law and her two teenage nephews hides in the garage of an affluent neighborhood. He waits until they are asleep. In the night, he bludgeons and stabs them to death, and flees. The perpetrator is the boy across the street, a family friend, 19 years old. Lost in grief, Judith falls into the welcoming arms of Zen. Five years later, through her newfound practice of daily mindfulness and meditation, she spontaneously forgives the killer. But before she can go to him and say, “I forgive you,” he hangs himself to death in his prison cell. Years later, she calls his mother. The two women cry together. Here is the intimate, revealing story of Judith’s life, and her love affair with Zen. Ironically, after being ordained by Thich Nhat Hanh, whose teachings abound in this book, she goes on to lead mindfulness practice in a medium-security prison where some of the young men know the murderer.

“A compelling story which embraces the whole spectrum of human experience from darkest suffering to radiant freedom. The author manages to keep those two extremes in delicate balance, infusing the whole with a fine gift for color and light. Best of all we see step by step how to work with emotions that block our way to forgiveness and love.” –Sara Jenkins, author of This Side of Nirvana

“Here is essentially a memoir—memoir as instruction manual, a guide to true forgiveness—forgiveness under the most inconceivable circumstances. This is a book for our time-and whatever times may come.”—Chan Tue Lon