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`Love is a sacred gift which can feed life
into your heart and soul and allow you to achieve happiness
regardless of material goods or power. Few things in this world are
more enriching than the sight and experience of a child who is
wrapped in the gift of love. At the same time there are few
moments in life more painful than those spent with a child who has
not received the gift of love and learned the joy which
comes from trusting and loving others. Over the last few years I
have had the opportunity to work with many such children. One of whom
has really played with my heart during the recent sniper shootings.
He is a twelve year old boy who has been raised in a
Christian home and taught to read the Bible. On a surface level he
would be called a cute, blonde haired boy with seemingly a lot to look
forward to in this world. Underneath the cute exterior is a wounded
children that draws fantastic pictures of people standing in the
woods, all in a row, with one red dot in their forehead. He
wants to be a police officer when he grows up because he wants the power,
badge---and the gun. He'll look you in the eye and say in all seriousness
he sees nothing wrong with what he is doing. So far, no one has been hurt.
He has already had a serious of minor encounters with law
enforcement. He is not considered a good candidate for restorative
justice because even now his crimes can be violent-- so far mainly
toward animals. This child has been called a heartbreaker by some of his
teachers because from time to time they look in his blue eyes and see an
innocent twelve year old. The rest of time they see anger and fear, not
all of which belongs to him. Some of that anger and fear rests within the
community. (This particular child lives in another state but almost
every community has a similar wounded child).
Last week I posted a case study about a teenage boy who fired a
paintball gun into a crowd--blinding a girl in the process. Several
responses came through this list about how would restorative justice
respond to the Beltway sniper. While this is a fascinating question in
many respects and one which warrants scholarly study, this (and all cases
of extreme violence) can also become a diversion which allow the
harm of crime to continue to hurt people seemingly far away from the
actual crime. In other words a more important question for the people of
this (our) community is how do we build a system of justice which offers
healing at such a profound level that our communities are never terrorized
by the horrors of a sniper, angry student, etc... How do we come together
as a community, embrace all our of diversity in terms of religion,
ethnicity, race; sexual preference; age; educational level; life
experiences and learn to not only tolerate these differences, but nurture
the love and gifts that each person has to offer. How do recognize
that a child in our midst is suffering from a deprivation of love or
other basic human survival needs? How do we respond when children or other
community members do small amounts of damage to a community member? How do
respond when children become engaged with the criminal justice system
for more serious offences? What support mechanisms do we have in place to
help reintegrate a child who has gotten into some trouble with the law?
What values do we share? How do we develop a form of justice which
nurtures restitution, reparation, accountability, responsibility,
forgiveness, peace, justice, stability, reintegration of victims and
offenders into their communites of origin? Do we do, respect and love
those whose job is to protect our communities? How do we move past the
idea that crime is for someone else to worry about? What events and wounds
live within our hearts which make not only to answer these questions but
transform the answer into practical everyday life? What historical events
and our local and wider communities might be working to prevent us from
developing a vision of justice which heals the harm of crime?
Crime touches all of us: law enforcement; officers of the court;
lawyers; politicians; school children; politicians; business owners;
activists and advocates for peace and justice; religious leaders, etc.
This means the answer to healing the harm of crime MUST involve every
member of the community. We need police, victims, offenders, scholars,
ministers and others of strong faith, politicians, lawyers, students and
everyone else to work for this new vision of justice that is inclusive. It
does not matter how badly a minister or police officer wants a victim or
offender to heal, they must be able to develop a trust and bond with their
community that empowers them to accept ownership of justice. Restorative
justice does not belong to any one political party, religion or other
special group of citizens. It is a gift centered in love and worthy of the
same tender care.
Before I close I want to share a story. A couple of years ago I
attended a Friends event where a man was stalking teenage girls. This man
was mentally disturbed but had enough of an advantage to know he held an
advantage over the girls. Some wanted him evicted from the event--perhaps
the police called. In the end the leaders chose to form a group of people
that would escort him around the campus for the rest of the event. This
seemed to satisfy most of the needs, but the event was traumatic for a
while. I remember one of the ministry messages that one of the adults
shared as episode was at its worst:
She said she remembered an essay that she had read in college about a
village. On the surface this village was very happy. Everyone went about
their daily lives almost without a care. But this village had a secret.
Locked in a dungeon down beneath the streets of this village was a child.
This girl was chained to the wall, dirty and under feed. The adults all
knew this terrible secret and went about their lives. As the children got
older they learned the secret of the village. Some of them decided they
could not stand it and moved away, never to return. Others stayed in the
village and lived their daily lives like the other adults.
The woman who shared this said she felt that we in the retreat had a
secret that we ignored. Looking at it the bigger world this child could
represent a lot of things. Can you think of something in your community
that this represents. Which option would you or have you selected? Are
these the only choices? If not, what can be done to create a justice of
justice that includes the symbolic child in the dungeon?
Tony
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