StoryCorps has always been an admirable project, a non-profit whose mission is to allow all Americans the opportunity to record our oral histories and thoughts. Since 2003, they have recorded and preserved interviews with over 60,000 people, burned to a CD for participants to share and archived for history at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress. Many are heartwarming stories, opportunities for grandparents to share early life with later generations, lovers to commemorate a lifetime together, parents telling their kids how truly magnificent they are…sometimes memories of battles fought and won, or lost. One of the most amazing stories I have heard is that of Mary Johnson, who sits down with Oshea Israel, the man who killed her son in 1993. Mary’s ability to not only forgive, but embrace, her son’s murderer is truly inspiring. It makes me look at forgiveness, and how I might find ways each day to shed the slights, the offenses, the annoyances, the frustrations that pepper my waking hours. Give a listen by clicking the button below…
“I just hugged the man who murdered my son.”
Mary Johnson speaks with Oshea Israel, who killed her son in 1993.
Recorded in Minneapolis, MN
Hear more great stories at storycorps.org.
Change by Doing 