Stories


The Peacekeeper: A Simple but Powerful Gesture

Herman Engel was out for a walk with his wife in lower Manhattan. As the couple was crossing the street at the corner, a speeding car screeched to a halt, missing them by inches. In fear and rage, Engel slammed his fist on the hood of the car. Furious, the young man driving the car got out, shouting, "Why'd you hit my car?" Engel shouted back, "You nearly killed my wife and me!" A crowd gathered. Engel was white, the driver was black, and suddenly the scene took on racial overtones. As people began to take sides, it looked as if the situation might escalate into a ...

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The Peacekeeper: Risking Life to Save Life

In August 1993, Sophelia White entered a hospital in southern California with a gun, proceeded up to the third-floor nursery, and wildly fired six shots at nurse Elizabeth Staten whom she accused of stealing her husband and children. Wounded, Staten fled downstairs, but White caught up with her at the chart desk and told her, "Prepare to die. Open your mouth." As she took aim, Nurse Joan Black intervened. She crossed the room, wrapped her right arm around White. "I figured if she could feel my body, maybe she wouldn't kill me." Tightening the hug, she placed her ...

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The Peacekeeper: Halting a Murder

May 20, 1961. A group of African-American civil rights protesters led by John Lewis had just arrived at the bus station in Montgomery, Alabama, where a hate-filled white mob awaited them. As the mob closed in to attack with heavy clubs, Lewis urged his people: "Stand together. Don't run. Just stand together!" The mob yelled, "Kill him. Kill him." Murder might have ensued had not Floyd Mann charged into the bus station. Mann, Alabama's public safety commissioner, was a committed segregationist but tough on law and order. He fired his gun into the air and shouted, ...

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The Referee: Rules for Fair Fighting in Marriage

Susan and Rick's marriage was in trouble. They were fighting all the time: "You're wasting our money on trinkets!" he would shout. "What about you, Mr. Showboat, buying drinks for all your friends?" "That was last year! I'm talking about yesterday." "So what? All you're worried about is money when you ought to worry about what kind of father you're being to our kids!" And on it would go until he would threaten to move out and she became frantic. Their marriage counselor intervened, teaching them rules for carrying on an argument: to use "I" statements ...

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The Referee: The Non-Offensive Country

Switzerland is a nation that protects itself with nonoffensive defense. Centuries ago, it adopted a policy of armed neutrality, actively signaling its intention of threatening no one. Today, its armed forces have no nuclear weapons, no long-range aircraft, no heavy bombers, and no tanks capable of advancing deep into enemy territory. Its weapons consist instead of antiaircraft systems, antitank weapons, antitank traps, short-range aircraft, helicopters, and light vehicles suitable for mountain defense. Switzerland relies heavily on its own people. Teachers, bankers, ...

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The Witness: Speaking Out for Love

At the height of World War II, hundreds of Christian women turned out in the middle of Berlin to protest the arrest of their Jewish husbands, whom the Nazis were about to deport to the death camps. "Give us back our husbands," the women chanted. The Nazi police came out to disperse them with guns and fierce dogs. The women fled at first, but later regathered and continued their protest day after day before the eyes of ordinary Berliners, who served as Witnesses. Although the Nazi regime had no compunctions about massacring innocents, they were nonetheless reluct...

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The Healer: No Sting of Bitterness

By Ron Borges Boston Globe 8/12/2003 Darryl Stingley didn't say the human thing when he heard the news about Jack Tatum. Instead, he said the right thing, which is what has separated him from a lot of people for a long, long time. Not as long as he's sat in the wheelchair that has been so much a part of his life all these years. Not for 25 years this very day. But for a long time the paralyzed former New England Patriot wide receiver has said the right thing but not for the reasons so many athletes say it today. Not for the wrong reasons. Not just to mouth words ...

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The Healer: Moving an Entire Nation

One person's act of forgiveness can sometimes move an entire nation. On Sunday, November 8, 1987, Gordon Wilson and his twenty-year-old daughter Marie were laying a wreath for the war dead at Enniskillen in Northern Ireland when a bomb exploded. Wilson lay buried under several feet of rubble, fumbling for his glasses, his shoulder dislocated. His daughter lay beside him dying. Later that evening, in an interview with the BBC, Wilson described with anguish his last conversation with his daughter and his feelings toward her killers: "She held my hand tightly, and ...

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The Healer: The Power of an Apology

"I was part of a surgical team which made a mistake," the physican recounted, "and we lost a child. Everyone froze and said nothing, fearful of the legal liability. I was in shock and didn't know what to say. I just went up to the child's mother and told her how very sorry I was." Three years later, the malpractice lawsuit finally came to court. Our lawyer just couldn't understand why I wasn't named when everyone else on the surgical team was. He asked me and I didn't know. Finally he couldn't contain his curiosity anymore so, during a deposition, he asked the child's ...

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The Healer: Replacing Road Rage

One day on a four-lane highway a senior executive failed to notice a driver behind him trying to pass. The frustrated driver finally passed on the right, blared his horn, and made an insulting gesture. The executive became enraged, sped up, and began to overtake the other car on the right. As he was passing it, he rolled open his window to shout a response; the other driver did the same. As the executive looked at the other driver, suddenly the words popped out, "I'm sorry!" The other driver was speechless, then he too replied, "I'm sorry!" Each ended up motioning the ...

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