Episode 757: Haymitch St. Stephen, New Book about Forgiveness (Ourselves and Others)

Listen, Learn & Love Hosted by Richard Ostler

Richard Ostler

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2024

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My friend Haymitch St. Stephen (BYU degree, Stanford graduate degree, mid 30s, SLC native, Latter-day Saint) joins us to talk about his new book called “Friend of the Devil: A Story of Mental Health, Mistakes, and Self-Forgiveness”. This book is the story of Haymitch’s lifelong friend Cameron White, who—at age 17 in 2007—was the drunken driver of a car that killed four members of a Salt Lake City family (Michelle Williams and her unborn baby, her son Ben, and daughter Anna). Michelle’s husband Chris Willams (and a son) survived the accident. Chris wrote about this experience in his book called “Let It Go”. Haymitch, working closely with Cameron White for 6 years, writes the book with insights from Cameron’s perspective of his long journey to find peace, hope, and self-forgiveness. It is a powerful story realizing the life-altering/shattering impact on the Williams family, spending time in jail, meeting Chris, and working to find hope and self-forgiveness—even when he doesn’t feel he deserves it. Haymitch, a gifted creative writer and mindful/spiritual big thinker, masterfully weaves in teachings from others (Jesus, Lisa Miller, Thomas McConkie, Adam Miller) to this real-life story to create hope, peace and healing for everyone that seeks to forgive themselves. It is a book that is helpful to all of us to find peace and joy in the realities of an often wounding world. I was so moved reading this book and listening to Haymitch. This is a powerful book that I encourage everyone to read. Thank you Haymitch (and Chris and Cameron) for sharing this story to help bring us together as the same human family. Links: Order Haymitch’s book: www.stillpoint.life Learn about the June 7, 2024 book launch event: www.stillpoint.life Contact Haymitch: www.stillpoint.life Chris Williams “Let It Go” book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1609071271

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome listeners to another episode of Listen, Learn, and Love, hosted by Richard Osler.
0:09.9	In my home, to talk about a new book that he has written as my friend, Hamich, St. Stephen, welcome to the podcast, Hamich.
0:17.8	Thank you. Glad to be here.
0:19.6	Those of you that are in Utah may remember the story happened in February of 2017, the
0:26.6	terrible accident with Cameron White being the driver, a 17-year-old senior to local high school
0:32.2	here in Salt Lake City who was drunk and hit Christopher.
0:36.6	What's Christopher's? Williams.
0:38.2	Williams.
0:40.0	And in that accident, Christopher's wife, pregnant wife, Michelle, and two children,
0:46.0	Ben and Anna were killed.
0:48.0	I remember that growing up in Salt Lake City followed this story closely.
0:52.6	Christopher's written a book.
0:54.0	I've always wondered how Cameron's
0:55.6	doing. Cameron's high school friend, fellow football friend, Hamish has written a book about this
1:03.2	experience with the permission of Cameron and Christopher and is here to share that book.
1:09.4	When Hamish sent me a request to be on the podcast and a little bit about the book,
1:15.0	I'm trying to do less books and mostly focus on LGBT stories,
1:18.9	but sometimes the spirit just says, you need to do this story.
1:23.1	And as I read through the book and looked at some of the people that Hamish was quoting,
1:28.7	Thomas McConkey, Richard Rohr, Adam Miller, and taking these beautiful gospel authors as well as the
1:36.2	doctrine of Christ to bring a book forward that talks about the pain of this experience, but also
1:42.3	the healing. It's a very, it's more than just theoretical.
	...

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