FORGIVENESS

Being outside of the U.S. has given me much needed perspective on the gun debate that has raged there for years, but has especially increased in the wake of the Newton massacre. I feel good about my understanding of the little research out there about if having a guns in houses makes communities safer or whether a country like Canada, France, or the UK has more or less violent crime than the U.S. taking into account the different definitions of crime and violent crime and the different reporting mechanisms in those countries.

But instead of weighing in on the debate, I’d rather share a story about forgiveness. Sometimes, instead of talking, you just need to listen, and this story spoke to me. I read a New York Times story about a convicted murderer who killed his girlfriend and an alternative process, a type of restorative justice process that was arranged by the deceased girlfriend’s parents.

To remind you of what I said earlier on justice, I am used to people using justice to mean punishment—punitive justice. Sometimes people use the term “justice” to refer to repayment—retributive justice (this corresponds to the vengeance or atonement purpose of punishments where the punishment must be proportionate to the crime). However, from doing volunteer work in environmental education and environmental justice as well as theological studies, my best or favourite understanding of justice is restorative. Justice is bigger than punishment, isn’t it? Justice is setting the wrong things right. Justice isn’t just chastising; it’s renewing, restoring, reconciling. It’s not just diagnosing, it’s healing; it’s not just exposing, it’s transforming.

You will not find a perfect restorative justice process in the story you are about to read, nor will you necessarily agree that the sentencing was the best form of restorative justice. Also the victim is dead and is not restored to life in any way. I am encouraged that the current alternative community process of restorative justice is a few steps closer to whatever we might imagine restorative justice to begin to look like, especially as the wrong things in the life of the murderer and even his family (anger, rage, etc.) are being set right. Out of the ashes of his wrong and his mistake, his life is being restored in a better way. Take a moment and read about forgiveness playing a role in the criminal justice system.

BEND IT LIKE KING

People talk to me all the time about the misery in the world, and there is a lot of it. There is a lot of mess to clean up, a lot of people who need to hear some good news, a lot of good news that is missing, a lot of war, a lot of poverty, a lot of ecological crises. But people also forget that there seems to be some invisibly guided trajectory of the arc of humanity. It bends towards justice. What has been the determining instigator in every situation? Questions.


The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.

--MLK



Questions help move us along this arc that bends toward justice. Questions allow us to realize that the law (rules and codes) don’t ever achieve the ideal of justice to which they lean. That is why we must always amend them, examine them, unsettle, unearth, and unhouse them—they fall short. And they always will.


There was a time when child labor was acceptable. There was time when the slave trade was not just condoned but encouraged. And even after the slave trade was abolished in many countries, we still had slavery condoned and encouraged (we even have slavery and child labor today). There was a time when women could not vote because they were considered less than men (they still are in many places). There was a time when workers had no rights as to their conditions (thanks Ms. Day). There was a time when the environment was taken for granted (though before there was a deeply embedded understanding of our connection to the environment, that we do not lord it over the environment or rule over it but that we sustain and are sustained by it—that if we deplete or damage the environment we deplete and damage ourselves). Genocide, asbestos, lead in petrol (gas), war crimes, sweat shops, unfair trade policies, etc. The list goes on and on. In all these things, someone asked a question that challenged the conventional wisdom. In all these situations questions led the way for the law to move closer to the justice it idealized.

I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. ... When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

Of course, the quote is beautiful, but it brings up the more profound question. What is justice?

OSAMA & OBAMA

I’ve been thinking a lot about justice lately. This is in part due to Osama and Obama. We know about the general philosophical reasons given for the threat and implementation of justice—deterrence, rehabilitation, and retribution (paying debt to society). But I’ve been deeply unsatisfied with narrow understandings of justice and judgment. I spoke about this at the Environmentors Awards Ceremony because the program teaches a wider view of justice.

With the announcement of Osama’s death, I received phone calls from people to see what I thought about what was going on, if I was celebrating outside the White House gates. I had many reactions and was curious to hear the comments of others. The celebrations outside the White House gates were very interesting to me, and I watched for some time. I heard one man say “I speak for all the New York City Firefighters when I say this: I hate Osama and I’m glad he’s dead.” I also heard one man say “His death doesn’t bring any of our loved ones back or change what happened that day.” Another said “We support the giving of justice in this manner.” I just sat and watched.

The celebrations reminded me that we are in war. As much as I forget sometimes, we are in a war. And in war, sometimes (please see the movie Joyeux Noël) people rejoice at the death of enemies. I say “sometimes” because anyone who has actually fought in war will tell you it can deeply mess you up; it is not glamorous. In fact the effects of it might lead you to regret the death of your enemy. The warring hope is that you don’t personalize your enemy but keep them objectified or else it will be difficult to kill him or her. (Have you seen the movie Joyeux Noël, yet?)

So I wanted to take a moment to talk about another understanding of justice. This is a view of justice that I get from my interpretation and understanding of God. It’s a view of justice that I see in my Environmentors program as we deal with environmental justice. The traditional view of justice is that justice is punishing wrong. But justice is bigger than that; isn’t it? It’s setting the wrong things right. Justice isn’t just chastising; it’s renovating; it’s restoring and reconciling. It’s not just diagnosing, it’s healing; it’s not just exposing, it’s transforming. I’ll err on the side of saying less rather than more and let that sit and marinate for a while without giving examples. I will say if you ever get a chance to engage in work that goes to this level, you’re really achieving the ideal of justice alluded to in the final words of the U.S. pledge of allegiance “. . . one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”