Ramblings of a sleep-deprived Catholic
I can't sleep, and I've been meaning to write about some of this for a while. The rest is a reaction to yesterday's events. Very overtly Catholic-y ramblings on sin and forgiveness, with a dash of current events and Ecuador, coming up.
We just came out of Holy Week, which for Catholics (and others) is a time to reflect on Jesus's death and resurrection. Lots of the core themes of Christianity come up during the week's readings, but the one that I kept thinking about was the idea of forgiveness. What does it mean that God forgives us? How can a God who is good and just look at some of the evils that we've been responsible for - war, violence, indifference to poverty and suffering, blatant cruelty - how can a God look at us when we are part of those things and say..."It's ok"? How can we believe in a God who saw all of that in us and still loved us enough to prove it giving his life? Radical forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity..."forgive us as we forgive others." but it's hard sometimes for me to understand how God does it, much less try to do it myself. I see injustice, and I get mad. Anger's a starting point, an acknowledgment that something is not right, but how do I move beyond that anger into something that has the power for change?
I was thinking about it again tonight as I can't seem to sleep. Thinking about the parents who are finding out tonight and tomorrow that they lost a child. Thinking about the terror those kids went through in their final moments, the trauma that others who survived are going to have to work through. Wondering what I would do if a gunman walked into my classroom. What I would feel if it had been one of my godkids killed so randomly. And thinking about that shooter, wondering what on earth he could possibly have been thinking, what it is that makes a human being do something like that. Wondering if my faith is big enough to believe in a God who could forgive even that degree of malice. Wondering, if it were one of my boys who are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, if someone did that to them...could I ever forgive that person?
And I thought back to something that happened in Ecuador last month that made me think about justice and forgiveness. I came face to face with a man who has done great harm to people that I love dearly. Because of his actions and his lies, several people are facing life with HIV, in a country where access to medical care is a mess. Two have come frighteningly close to death. One is a little kid who has been through way too much for even an adult to handle. And just sitting here, thousands of miles away, years after I found out what he had done, I think about the hurt that this man has caused and how much suffering could have been avoided and it infuriates me.
And yet, when I saw him, I didn't feel any of that anger. Just deep sadness and sorrow about all the hurt. I can't really explain it, but I looked at him and I saw the lost kid he'd been ten years ago. It was like all at once I remembered the hurts he'd been through that had led up to where he is now. Remembered those moments of hope when I'd seen kindness and compassion in him. None of that made what he did ok. None of it is an excuse for what he's done. But when I saw him, I loved him. Even thinking about everything he'd done, I loved him. And I tried to help him, even if there wasn't much I could do. It felt like just for a little while, I could understand what that cliche about "love the sinner, hate the sin" was supposed to mean. And I could understand in a very tiny way the idea of a God who loves us deeply even when we do stupid and bad things.
Afterwards, I almost felt guilty about it. I was seeing some of the people he'd hurt the next day. It felt somehow llike I was being disloyal to them. I wasn't sure what the right thing to do was - in this case, forgiveness wasn't really mine to offer. On the other hand, thankfully I'm not some kind of judge who has to make decisions about what's going to happen to this guy. The next day, one of those people asked me about him. I gave a pretty vague answer, and they wanted me to give a message to him the next time I saw him..."tell him I'm not angry about what he did, that I just want him to go to the doctor and get help."
What can you say to that?
So...how to reconcile justice and mercy? I don't really know. But moments like those - they give me faith that somehow it's possible.
In that hope, here's a final quote:
"Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.
Truth will spring from the earth; justice will look down from heaven."
Psalm 85:11-12
Here's hoping.
We just came out of Holy Week, which for Catholics (and others) is a time to reflect on Jesus's death and resurrection. Lots of the core themes of Christianity come up during the week's readings, but the one that I kept thinking about was the idea of forgiveness. What does it mean that God forgives us? How can a God who is good and just look at some of the evils that we've been responsible for - war, violence, indifference to poverty and suffering, blatant cruelty - how can a God look at us when we are part of those things and say..."It's ok"? How can we believe in a God who saw all of that in us and still loved us enough to prove it giving his life? Radical forgiveness is at the heart of Christianity..."forgive us as we forgive others." but it's hard sometimes for me to understand how God does it, much less try to do it myself. I see injustice, and I get mad. Anger's a starting point, an acknowledgment that something is not right, but how do I move beyond that anger into something that has the power for change?
I was thinking about it again tonight as I can't seem to sleep. Thinking about the parents who are finding out tonight and tomorrow that they lost a child. Thinking about the terror those kids went through in their final moments, the trauma that others who survived are going to have to work through. Wondering what I would do if a gunman walked into my classroom. What I would feel if it had been one of my godkids killed so randomly. And thinking about that shooter, wondering what on earth he could possibly have been thinking, what it is that makes a human being do something like that. Wondering if my faith is big enough to believe in a God who could forgive even that degree of malice. Wondering, if it were one of my boys who are seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, if someone did that to them...could I ever forgive that person?
And I thought back to something that happened in Ecuador last month that made me think about justice and forgiveness. I came face to face with a man who has done great harm to people that I love dearly. Because of his actions and his lies, several people are facing life with HIV, in a country where access to medical care is a mess. Two have come frighteningly close to death. One is a little kid who has been through way too much for even an adult to handle. And just sitting here, thousands of miles away, years after I found out what he had done, I think about the hurt that this man has caused and how much suffering could have been avoided and it infuriates me.
And yet, when I saw him, I didn't feel any of that anger. Just deep sadness and sorrow about all the hurt. I can't really explain it, but I looked at him and I saw the lost kid he'd been ten years ago. It was like all at once I remembered the hurts he'd been through that had led up to where he is now. Remembered those moments of hope when I'd seen kindness and compassion in him. None of that made what he did ok. None of it is an excuse for what he's done. But when I saw him, I loved him. Even thinking about everything he'd done, I loved him. And I tried to help him, even if there wasn't much I could do. It felt like just for a little while, I could understand what that cliche about "love the sinner, hate the sin" was supposed to mean. And I could understand in a very tiny way the idea of a God who loves us deeply even when we do stupid and bad things.
Afterwards, I almost felt guilty about it. I was seeing some of the people he'd hurt the next day. It felt somehow llike I was being disloyal to them. I wasn't sure what the right thing to do was - in this case, forgiveness wasn't really mine to offer. On the other hand, thankfully I'm not some kind of judge who has to make decisions about what's going to happen to this guy. The next day, one of those people asked me about him. I gave a pretty vague answer, and they wanted me to give a message to him the next time I saw him..."tell him I'm not angry about what he did, that I just want him to go to the doctor and get help."
What can you say to that?
So...how to reconcile justice and mercy? I don't really know. But moments like those - they give me faith that somehow it's possible.
In that hope, here's a final quote:
"Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.
Truth will spring from the earth; justice will look down from heaven."
Psalm 85:11-12
Here's hoping.