12.28.05
Places I Visit
Since many people do not visit the links I have posted, I’m going to list them here and add a link only to this page. They’ll most likely shift and change often, so check back occasionally.
Grenada – Website devoted to repairing Hurricane damage in Grenada.
My Photos – My Flickr account with some of my photography.
Center for Action and Contemplation – Richard Rohr’s community in New Mexico.
The Jesuits – Website for the Jesuit Order of the Catholic Church
The Landing Place – Community of Faith in Columbus. Ohio.
N.T. Wright Page – N.T. Wright is a British Anglican biblical scholar.
Sojourners – Community of Faith and social action group in Washington D.C.
Center of Concern – Promotes global justice and peace through religious values.
CIVIC – Campaign for Innocent Victims In Conflict.
DATA – Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa.
Fellowship of Reconciliation – Interfaith organization committed to justice and nonviolence.
Human Rights Watch – Monitors human rights issues around the world.
Pax Christi – National Catholic Peace Movement
12.22.05
Some select responses…
I haven’t yet replied at all to the points brought up by those involved in the death penalty discussion. I haven’t mostly because others have artfully made clear any points I may have offered. I will however respond to a few perhaps unclarified issues. I’m not necessarily trying to reopen the discussion, but will gladly continue to work through it if anyone is interested.
“You are asking a culture that is not Christian to understand redemption and grace.” -Brett
What I am asking is for those who call themselves members of the Kingdom to live as so. If we are not exhibiting grace and forgiveness, we are not exhibiting Christ. It seems to me there are often issues where we make the statement that we can’t expect the general culture to accept or understand grace, forgiveness, peace, etc. But then we expect them to understand and appreciate our views on Abortion and Homosexual marriage? Which is it? Christians are willing to go protest at Wal Mart because they say Happy Holidays but not because of the Human Rights abuses they exhibit. What is wrong here? What I think the culture should expect from us is a willingness to offer grace, to seek peace, to stand up for the oppressed, and to live in solidarity with the suffering .
“TB, My name is Jennifer. I don’t see it as a forgiveness/forgiving issue. I don’t need to forgive him, he has done nothing to me personally. He didn’t kill my son.” – Jennifer
The fact that we don’t see this as a forgiveness issue is the heart of the problem. We DO need to forgive him. Simply because he didn’t kill someone we know doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us. Our individualism in this culture is causing us to forget that we are all connected. If TB ignores and abuses his son, it affects me. If a guy in California kills another man, it affects me. The interconnectedness of the Kingdom knows no limits, no boundaries. Neither do the principles that guide it: Forgiveness, Love, Reconciliation, Peace and Suffering With.
“Is Jesus not asking us to replace judgement with forgiveness, like he has done for us? Is he not asking us to replace punishment with love? It seems clear through Matthew 5, that Jesus is replacing the old way of an “eye for an eye” with the new way of “love your enemy”.” – TB
I’m interested in hearing a response to this. When I read Jennifer’s response and the OT was quoted, it became very similar to the discussions I’ve had regarding violence. Perhaps a helpful task would be to list all the things Jesus redefined. Are we willing to cede that he redefined the Law, so that we no longer have to give sacrifices or sit “unclean” for weeks at a time, but we cannot cede that he changed the Law in regards to punishment and violence?
“I would be interested in knowing what suggestions you would have to change our current prison and court systems?” – Brett
I’ll be real honest and say that I don’t know what the solution is. But it is a mistake to say that prisons are effective and working as they should be. Prisons are promoted as places of rehabilitation. From the Ohio DRC site: “Through rehabilitative and restorative programming, we seek to instill in offenders an improved sense of responsibility and the capacity to become law-abiding members of society.” But we don’t believe in this. We are content with the aspect that we are kept safe. The prison population is steadily climbing, but the crime rates aren’t dropping. More prisons, the places for rehabilitation, do not equal less crime. Unfortunately for us, I don’t think the answer is simple enough to be phrased quite so easily. The answer is an upheaval of what the middle and upper class hold dear. We will not see a drastic reduction in crime until the privileged begin to care earnestly about the underprivileged. When our schools are funded justly, we will see more opportunities and interest in minorites and poverty stricken youth to engage in community minded behavior. When our neighborhoods aren’t gentrified, we will begin to see interracial collaboration and the breakdown of institutional racism. When the privileged few stop caring for themselves and vote, act upon, live among, die alongside the poor and oppressed, we will begin to see the reversal of centuries of hate, racism, oppression and judgment. This is an upheaval that we do not crave. We are the privileged. All we want is for things to stay the same.
12.15.05
Here is a man…
TB said…
My name is Kyle.
First, the forgiveness issue you addressed is poignant. I see what you are saying, but I think it applies to all of us. I see that Jesus said both “judge and you will be judged”, and “forgive or you will not be forgiven”. He is essentially asking us to replace judgement with forgiveness, as he has done with us as a broken, suffering, and selfish people.
This is mercy.
Mercy requires no punishment, such as a death penalty, or even a prison. Mercy received is the same as pouring hot coals on your head. The shame, guilt, and brokenness you experience as a result of someone who loves you even though you have hurt them, is the ultimate consequence to any sin.
This is where repentence begins.
“…what shall we do with those who rape and kill our children? How do you suggest we deal with the most violent of pedofiles?”
Superb question, Jennifer. I am sure that if you looked at any one of these person’s past, you would see suffering from abuse and abandonment. It is my understanding that these persons need to be given grace, love, and need to be suffered with. Their circumstances are overwhelming, and they are sick. If we have been made healthy, then we need to suffer with these people to help them get better.
Instead, we put them in prison, in ghettos, and we move to the suberbs to be safe – making the problem worse. If God has given us grace and mercy, it is only so we can give it to others. Their victimhood does not make their actions right, but we would be vulnerable to those same actions if we were isolated becuase of poverty, sexual abuse, physical abuse, abandonment, etc. This cycle of abuse continues because we avoid dealing with it by forgeting about it, moving away from it, and blaming them for their sins, rather than liberating them, so that they can love, because we have loved them.
Love is all we have – it is our hope. It is the greatest comandment – consuming the law, fullfilling it, because it is the law. It is time to stop punishment, and time to give mercy and love, so that we can be made new. Fear and violence is never a cure for fear and violence.
peace Jennifer
be well and smile
12.12.05
Zihuatanejo
Do we believe in redemption or not? The basis of our lives, of our faith, is that we are radically forgiven and reconciled…that we might have new relationships with God and others. We base our faith on the idea that we can be redeemed; that our relationships to man and to God can be healed of their brokenness and returned to acts of intimacy, suffering-with, and love. But many of us are working against these ideas.
This man, Stanley “Tookie” Williams is set to be executed tonight. Please read the linked article and the articles listed along with it. This is a man convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence, much of which was offered by men given deals to testify. He has consistently denied his guilt while at the same time affirming his notoriety as a gang leader. During his time in prison, he has written children’s books, spoken against gang violence and other social problems, and has met with many world leaders who are also working for peace. Yet we consider him a prime candidate to be put to death. We are in fact denying him the very grace we have been given. Do we really believe in the process of redemption? Do we believe criminals can be redeemed? We certainly don’t act like it. We set up prisons in the interest of “reformation” and “correction”, but when that actually occurs, we still do not want them in our society. There is no forgiveness, there is no reconciliation, there is no healing.
Red: Rehabilitated? Well, Now let me see. You know, I don’t have any idea what that means.
Parole official: Well, it means that you’re ready to rejoin society.
Red: I know what you think it means, sonny. To me it’s just a made up word; a politician’s word. So young fellas like yourself can wear a suit, and tie, and have a job. What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did?
Parole official: Well, are you?
Red: There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, or because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then, a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try and talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone and this old man is all that’s left. I got to live with that. Rehabilitated? It’s just a bullshit word. So you go on and stamp your form, sonny, and stop wasting my time. Because to tell you the truth, I don’t give a shit.
Red understood what prisons are for. They are there to insure that the people we are afraid of cannot get to us. If we were able to say with any honesty that we really believe they are for reformation, we have given up that notion many times over, specifically in this case. We feel safer because the “dangerous black man” is there in prison and we are safe in the suburbs. What forgiveness, what reconciliation, what peace, what love, what intimacy, what suffering-with are we offering those when we decide to imprison a man and simply hope they never get out?
Red: These walls are kind of funny. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em. Enough time passes, gets so you depend on them. That’s institutionalized. They send you here for life, that’s exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyways.
Brooks: [narrating] Dear fellas, I can’t believe how fast things move on the outside. I saw an automobile once when I was a kid but now they’re everywhere. The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry. The parole board got me into this halfway house called “The Brewer”. And a job bagging groceries at the Foodway. It’s hard work and I try to keep up but my hands hurt most of the time. I don’t think the store manager likes me very much. Sometimes after work I go to the park and feed the birds. I keep thinking Jake might just show up and say hello. But he never does. I hope wherever he is he’s ok and makin’ new friends. I have trouble sleepin’ at night. I have bad dreams like I’m falling. I wake up scared. Sometimes it takes me a while to remember where I am. Maybe I should get me a gun, an, an rob the Foodway so they’d send me home. I could shoot the manager while I was at it, sort of like a bonus. I guess I’m too old for that sort of nonsense anymore. I don’t like it here. I’m tired of being afraid all the time. I’ve decided not to stay. I doubt they’ll kick up any fuss. Not for an old crook like me.
Is our hope that these men would be lost to society forever? More important, do we believe there is a possibility of forgiveness and redemption, or do we simply care not to think about it? Brooks was given no hope. Nobody offered him the vision that we can give as members of the Kingdom. Why are we holding to ourselves what Christ freely gave us? By what right do we give forgiveness and reconciliation only to some?
How dare we.
There is a little less than 5 hours left before Stanley is executed. We’re often the face of judgment, but we should be the face of love.
Red: I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head. I think it the excitement only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey whose conclusion is uncertain. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend, and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.
12.11.05
Advent and Suffering
3rd Sunday of Advent and Henri Nouwen says:
All suffering has a hidden quality, a quality of strangeness. Our temptation is to look at suffering as big, spectacular, noisy, and very imposing. But in the center of all the hunger, homelessness, violence, torture, war, there is a hidden anguish, a silent agony, an invisible loneliness, that nobody wants to touch. Jesus touched it, lived it, and carried it to the grave where he lifted it up to new life.
When we do not recognize this hidden quality of suffering, we might easily be seduced into taking on the posture of problem solvers who, in a great eagerness to help, add violence to violence. There is an enormously seductive quality to the big sufferings of the world. They can even have a great fascination for us. Countless generous people, wanting to be of service to the world, have been overpowered by the forces they tried to conquer.
Lord, give us the courage to confront evil but the humility and patience needed to keep us from making a bad situation even worse.
12.09.05
Bazan
all the way to grandma’s house
i stayed on the narrow path
but my brother wandered off
deep into the woods
bitten twice by rattle snake
strangled up in poison oak
he fell down and broke his legs
into a great ravine
when i arrived at grandma’s house
she made us tea and cake
she asked me where my brother was
i said i don’t know and ate
when i get to heaven i’ll be greeted warmly
surrounded by angels
as jesus takes my hand
i’ll receive a mansion
on the river jordan
and a crown of diamonds
for a race well run
i won’t ever lock my doors
i will trust my neigbors
confident that they deserve
to be there in heaven, too
12.05.05
Torture Anyone?
I’m really not sure what to say. We hold ourselves up as a moral example? Yet we are one of the few countries to still have the death penalty (and of the even fewer who execute for crimes committed as a minor). We believe everyone but us should sign the Geneva Conventions. We believe we should have the rights to nuclear weapons, but not most other countries. We hold prisoners in Guatanamo with no charges for years while we fight for the right of Tom Delay to have due process. Our president, secretary of state, secretary of defense and others deny that we have sent prisoners to other countries to interrogate them, and we deny that we torture.
Well, turns out we do have secret prisons. Heard much from Dick Cheney? Probably not. He spends most of his days in the senate trying to vote down anti-torture bills. I wonder how long it will be before the torture admissions come forth. I’m sure they’ll come along with the definitions: “Well, we don’t consider sleep deprivation or mental duress to be torture.” “Since we are not a member of the Geneva Convention, we are not obliged to honor that system.”
I’ve been practicing offering solutions. This one is simple. Don’t torture. Give people their legal rights. Offer the same treatment to “terrorist” suspects that you give to Tom Delay.
