Forgiveness & Other Acts of Love by
Stephanie Dowrick, a psychotherapist, explores
Eastern and Western philosophical teachings on six
virtues that she turned to while dealing with breast
cancer in the midst of divorce proceedings. She
calls forgiveness “an act of supreme love and
gentleness” that helps us heal ourselves and the
world at the same time.
Crash 2004 — Crash takes a
provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of
racial tolerance in contemporary America. Diving
headlong into the diverse melting pot of post-9/11
Los Angeles, this compelling urban drama tracks the
volatile intersections of a multi-ethnic cast of
characters’ struggles to overcome their fears as
they careen in and out of one another’s lives.
End of the Spear 2006 - This true story recounts
the murder of five American Christian missionaries
in the Ecuadorian jungles of the Amazon in January
1956 by a tribe whose practice of vengeance killing
has brought them to the brink of extinction. The
Christians had wanted to bring them the message of
nonviolence, and after the killings, their families
not only forgive the Indians, they move in with them
to show them how to live in peace.
The Mission
1986 - This compelling drama, set at a Jesuit
mission to the Guarani Indians in 18th century South
America, has one of the most powerful scenes of
forgiveness ever put on film. Robert de Niro plays a
former mercenary and slave trader who experiences a
release from the sins of his past when he comes to
work with the Indians he has hunted. He and the
other priests later discover the difficulty of
modeling a life of love and forgiveness in a world
convulsed by power, greed, and violence.
