Bill Pelke
The healing power of forgiveness
“When my heart was touched with love and compassion, I no longer pictured the violent murder of my grandmother. I pictured how she lived and what a beautiful person she was.”
— Bill Pelke
- Speaker
- Bill Pelke
- Country
- USA
- Published
- July 2020
Director's Note
Bill Pelke explains how compassion, love and forgiveness were able to change his memories of the violent murder of his grand-mother.
Full Transcript
Forgiveness has many powers, I mean, The one that really touched me the most the night that I was touched with it was the healing power of forgiveness. Because for a year and a half whenever I thought about Nana, I envisioned her butchered on the dining room floor the dining room where our family went every year for Christmas, thanksgiving, Easter. And to try to think about her, it just was very very painful. autopsy and it was brought out in court that not only was she stabbed 33 times with a twelve inch butcher knife but they had a section of the carpet that was underneath her body in the courtroom that day and showed how that carpet had been shredded by the knife. But when my heart was touched with that love and compassion, I knew I'd no longer picture Nana butchered on the dining room, but I'd picture her how she lived, what she stood for, what she believed in, just a beautiful wonderful person she was. And it was just something very special for me.
Speaker
Themes Explored
Guided Meditations by this Speaker

Forgiveness, a beautiful way to live
Forgiveness, a beautiful way to live

A life of forgiveness, a life worth living
A life of forgiveness, a life worth living

Compassion and love’s healing power
This timelapse was taken in the Jubilee community in Georgia (USA). They built a cemetery for death row prisoner. It was interesting to hear why they choose to …

