Post by SoulTrainOz on Jul 14, 2006 0:42:42 GMT -5
By Doug Sangster, Guest Column, The Amarillo Globe-News
I'm conflicted. Mercy? Or justice?
Last week I sat inside a prison and listened to inmates talk about the wonderful programs that have helped rehabilitate them. Small groups. Big groups. Twelve-Step groups. Therapy. Discipleship. The prisoners were the beneficiaries of a model rehabilitation program - and I was mad as Hades.
While others listened with smiles, I sat next to the rostrum, legs crossed, looking away. I'm certain the men on the front row saw that the vein in my forehead was the size of a small garden hose. I didn't care.
The warden applauded the progress of the prisoners. I didn't clap. Inside, I thought, "What about the women and children they violated? What programs are available for their recovery? This isn't justice."
I suppose some of this cognitive dissonance can be blamed on my juridical Protestantism. You see, in my darker moments, I'm a tub-thumper for a hard-line God. The way I see it, when the law is broken, someone must pay. Away with rehabilitation. Bring on lex talionis and retributive justice! A stiff dose of retribution, administered with homicidal fury, is what the prisoners need most.
Or is it?
Digression: If you haven't noticed, this is how I entertain myself - smugly deciding whom God should smite. After all, I'm a self-appointed judge and jury. When God begs to differ, I wheedle about what's right, wrong, just and fair. My sadistic love of vengeance ... uh, justice, makes Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal look like a limp-wristed pansy.
That brings me back to the previously mentioned conflict. My histrionic sense of justice sometimes runs roughshod over the need to dispense mercy. That's why the Amarillo Globe-News' July 6 edition gave me an acute case of vertigo.
For those who missed it, Erin McClam of the Associated Press reported that some former Enron employees celebrated Kenneth Lay's heart attack with party favors and whistles. When I read that, my inner turmoil sloshed onto the page. Champagne at a wake? Is that an expression of justice?
It appears that some former Enron employees love justice (code word for vengence) and retribution so much they were willing to dance on a dead man's grave, while his widow watched. Suppose they're Protestants? I wonder if they got their pound of flesh? Or, if the punch and cake satisfied their hunger for vengeance?
Don't misunderstand. I said I was conflicted, and I meant it. On the one hand, I can sympathize with the victims of Enron. Some of those people lost a million dollars in retirement funds. Irretrievably gone. The ugly tub-thumper in me says, "Lay got off light. But that's OK; God will get him. In the meantime, let's take up a collection and make a donation to the American Heart Association in his name!"
That's what happens when I dispense justice - apocalyptic mayhem. Good thing I report to a bishop.
On the other hand, there's a side of me that sympathizes with Kenneth Lay's family.
Yes, he was a monster. But Mrs. Lay lost her husband. The Lay children lost their father.
And they're grieving while former Enron employees toast the undertaker. That kind of bellicose spirit leaves me feeling queasy, coarse and empty.
But what to do? How do we balance mercy and justice, especially when dealing with hooligans and rapscallions? Don't look at me. I'm the guy who's struggling. All I can tell you is what happened back at that prison, when my nostrils were flaring at the imaginary smell rising from Dante's inferno.
The man sitting next to me leaned over and said, "Do you want to say something to them?" He was oblivious! If he only knew what I might say! Edgar Allan Poe couldn't have written a better script. This was my chance to execute justice. I felt powerful. My adrenaline surged.
But something happened when I stepped to the podium. I became Balaam. I wanted to curse them for hurting women and children, but I couldn't. I wanted to grin and inform them that they were spiders on a thread, dangling over the yawning chasm of hell, but I whiffed. The words wouldn't come out.
Instead, I told them they were being rehabilitated to make restitution. They were being healed to become healers.
Don't ask. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you where those words came from. I only know that when I sat down, I was encouraged by the thought of prisoners being transformed by mercy in order to make restitution.
Source : The Amarillo Globe-News (Doug Sangster is the pastor of All Saints Reformed Episcopal Church. He has tub-thumped in Amarillo for 18 years)
www.amarillo.com/stories/071306/opi_5090429.shtml
I'm conflicted. Mercy? Or justice?
Last week I sat inside a prison and listened to inmates talk about the wonderful programs that have helped rehabilitate them. Small groups. Big groups. Twelve-Step groups. Therapy. Discipleship. The prisoners were the beneficiaries of a model rehabilitation program - and I was mad as Hades.
While others listened with smiles, I sat next to the rostrum, legs crossed, looking away. I'm certain the men on the front row saw that the vein in my forehead was the size of a small garden hose. I didn't care.
The warden applauded the progress of the prisoners. I didn't clap. Inside, I thought, "What about the women and children they violated? What programs are available for their recovery? This isn't justice."
I suppose some of this cognitive dissonance can be blamed on my juridical Protestantism. You see, in my darker moments, I'm a tub-thumper for a hard-line God. The way I see it, when the law is broken, someone must pay. Away with rehabilitation. Bring on lex talionis and retributive justice! A stiff dose of retribution, administered with homicidal fury, is what the prisoners need most.
Or is it?
Digression: If you haven't noticed, this is how I entertain myself - smugly deciding whom God should smite. After all, I'm a self-appointed judge and jury. When God begs to differ, I wheedle about what's right, wrong, just and fair. My sadistic love of vengeance ... uh, justice, makes Nazi-hunter Simon
Wiesenthal look like a limp-wristed pansy.
That brings me back to the previously mentioned conflict. My histrionic sense of justice sometimes runs roughshod over the need to dispense mercy. That's why the Amarillo Globe-News' July 6 edition gave me an acute case of vertigo.
For those who missed it, Erin McClam of the Associated Press reported that some former Enron employees celebrated Kenneth Lay's heart attack with party favors and whistles. When I read that, my inner turmoil sloshed onto the page. Champagne at a wake? Is that an expression of justice?
It appears that some former Enron employees love justice (code word for vengence) and retribution so much they were willing to dance on a dead man's grave, while his widow watched. Suppose they're Protestants? I wonder if they got their pound of flesh? Or, if the punch and cake satisfied their hunger for vengeance?
Don't misunderstand. I said I was conflicted, and I meant it. On the one hand, I can sympathize with the victims of Enron. Some of those people lost a million dollars in retirement funds. Irretrievably gone. The ugly tub-thumper in me says, "Lay got off light. But that's OK; God will get him. In the meantime, let's take up a collection and make a donation to the American Heart Association in his name!"
That's what happens when I dispense justice - apocalyptic mayhem. Good thing I report to a bishop.
On the other hand, there's a side of me that sympathizes with Kenneth Lay's family.
Yes, he was a monster. But Mrs. Lay lost her husband. The Lay children lost their father.
And they're grieving while former Enron employees toast the undertaker. That kind of bellicose spirit leaves me feeling queasy, coarse and empty.
But what to do? How do we balance mercy and justice, especially when dealing with hooligans and rapscallions? Don't look at me. I'm the guy who's struggling. All I can tell you is what happened back at that prison, when my nostrils were flaring at the imaginary smell rising from Dante's inferno.
The man sitting next to me leaned over and said, "Do you want to say something to them?" He was oblivious! If he only knew what I might say! Edgar Allan Poe couldn't have written a better script. This was my chance to execute justice. I felt powerful. My adrenaline surged.
But something happened when I stepped to the podium. I became Balaam. I wanted to curse them for hurting women and children, but I couldn't. I wanted to grin and inform them that they were spiders on a thread, dangling over the yawning chasm of hell, but I whiffed. The words wouldn't come out.
Instead, I told them they were being rehabilitated to make restitution. They were being healed to become healers.
Don't ask. For the life of me, I couldn't tell you where those words came from. I only know that when I sat down, I was encouraged by the thought of prisoners being transformed by mercy in order to make restitution.
Source : The Amarillo Globe-News (Doug Sangster is the pastor of All Saints Reformed Episcopal Church. He has tub-thumped in Amarillo for 18 years)
www.amarillo.com/stories/071306/opi_5090429.shtml