Love Makes A Difference

I watched an episode of Law and Order which illustrated quite well the very sensitive issue of the death penalty. In it, a young man only eighteen years old was on trial for brutally murdering someone. The jury was responsible for determining whether or not he should be put to death for his crime. In essence they were determining if his life was worth living. His lawyer pled the case that at eighteen no one is the same as they will be at 50. He suggested that none could determine how he might or might not change given the chance to live out his life and that none of the jurors could honestly make a claim to make such a claim.

Would his death be more beneficial to our society and the world than his death? Was he capable of being anything more than a psychopathic killer? Throughout the show he’d been depicted as a total villain…a truly unlovable, scary and menacing character. Yet as the episode drew to a close the jury did indeed find him worthy of death. His mother who loved him dearly and believed his life worthy of saving, despite his crime, shocked all of the people in courtroom by shouting out in grief. She was pleading and begging with gut wrenching cries for the jury not to kill her son. Her child, who in her eyes was too young and too good to be put to death. Yet the decision to put him to death hung in the air like a thick cloud. Everyone in the courtroom was visibly moved - shaken...even the wife of the man who’d been murdered. The final scene showed the weight of the decision made on behalf of the people to kill an eighteen year old boy.

After watching this episode I found myself deeply saddened and troubled. Although I knew that the show was fictional, I also knew that there have been many real cases in which all sorts of people, young and old, have been put to death for crimes committed and some despite their innocence. I applaud the producer, writers and actors of this episode for so perfectly depicting the very real emotions (…fear, anger, grief and even confusion…) the issue of the death penalty brings to light.

There are many stories of people who have committed horrible crimes, for instance, senseless murders, rapes, and sexual and physical abuses. Perhaps what we’d really like to see is all of this ugliness be wiped from the face of the earth. We want it done quickly and easily while we politely look the other way, but in my heart I don’t believe that any of us honestly can. Yet because we fear the darkness, and the inexplicable capacity of another human being to destroy we find comfort in attempting to extinguish the evil we feel we can identify. Do any of us as human beings ever have the right to exterminate the life of another simply to assuage our fears or to say that a person is beyond redemption? Who knows what interaction -a spoken word, a piece of writing, a t.v. show, might at any time make a soul shaking impact during their lives?

It’s probably evident that I don’t believe the death penalty is something we have the right to invoke upon one another. (I won't even go into my spiel about it not really solving anything.) Above all my fears, judgment and other such darkness within, I recognize and understand that we are all divinely created, even those of us who commit terrible crimes against humanty. Each of our lives is a precious gift. We each have the opportunity to lead by example.

I don’t have all of the answers. I’m not convinced that any of us do. If we study the great teachers and spiritual leaders like Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King and countless others from every age and place on the globe  we find that there is no guaranteed quick fix. Yet they each offer us a sure solution. Love. Here we get to the source…love. It’s the most powerful transformative agent/force there is. “It’s like Martin Luther King Junior’s quote, “Darkness cannot drive out
darkness, only light can do that….hate cannot drive out hatred…only love can do that.”  The cure for depravity, indifference, isolation and disconnection, is love. The solution to murder, racism, sexism, classism and other such dividing forces in our world is love. It’s love that urges the families of murder victims to plead the case of life for the murders of their loved ones. It’s love that enables victims of racism, or sexism to repeatedly open their hearts, homes and lives to the very people who have abused and mistreated them.

It’s also love that breaks through the barriers of pain, confusion, anger/rage, distance and despondency of even the most hardened men and women. It chips away at the foundations of the walls they've built around themselves until cracks begin to run through them and they come tumbling down. No one is untouchable. No one is above or beneath it.

This kind of love is never offered in vain. I believe that this is the sort of love that Jesus offers to all. It’s the sort of love that we now have the chance to offer others. And it’s the kind that really and truly makes a difference.

Prayer for the Journey:
Today I pray for humanity. That we will find all the ways we possibly can to see, hear, touch and understand one another in love.