Lucky me. I grew up with a mother who loved her four children. 

   Unlucky Patricia Krenwinkel.

   We extol love here not murder. Sometimes love is better understood by observing its opposite. 

   In 1969 Krenwinkel chased down actress Abigail Folger and stabbed her to death. Later the same night she helped murder Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. On the same evening she participated in killing four more including, most famously, actress Sharon Tate, wife of movie director Roman Polanski. She knew none of her victims. 

   This slaughter of seven people by the infamous "Manson Family" is now considered one of the most sensational crimes in 20th century American history.

   Was the real culprit a lack of love?

   In 1969 Krenwinkel was unrepentant. Today, the London Daily Mail says: "Patricia Krenwinkel… says she took part in the cult killings because she was a 'coward' and  'wanted to feel loved,' …'I wanted to please, I wanted to love, I wanted for the first time to feel safe. I wanted to feel like someone was going to care for me because I hadn't felt that anywhere else in my life."

   We can write off Krenwinkel's comments as just another criminal blaming her upbringing. Yet, how many times have you heard miscreants and other failures complain that no one cared about them?

   Those of us that campaign for Radical Loving Care often encounter a frustrating phenomenon. It involves people who say love matters but cannot figure out how love impacts  medical care. They are stuck on the idea that curing is about delivering ten cubic centimeters of demerol or five radiation treatments for cancer.   

   Medicine can cure. Only love can ignite your greatest energy – the healing power that lives in your heart. 

   What would your life have been like if you had never felt loved? 

-Erie Chapman