Apr 20, 2007


When Violence Kills Itself

I’ve always heard the old adage, “violence is a weapon of the weak.” But after events like the Virginia Tech massacre, it’s easy to think that violence has ultimate power. After all, we’ve learned history through the lens of war. And we read the news through acts of violence rather than the hidden acts of love that keep hope alive.

But there is a common thread in many of the most horrific perpetrators of violence that begs our attention – they kill themselves. Violence kills the image of God in us. It is a cry of desperation, a weak and cowardly cry of a person suffocated of hope. Violence goes against everything that we are created for – to love and to be loved – so it inevitably ends in misery and suicide. When people succumb to violence it ultimately infects them like a disease or a poison that leads to their own death. Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus with a violent kiss, ends his life by hanging himself with a noose. After his notorious persecutions, the Emperor Nero’s story ends as he stabs himself. Hitler passed out suicide pills to all his heads of staff, and ended his life as one of the most pitifully lonely people to walk the earth. We see the same in the case of Columbine, the 2007 Amish school shootings, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and this recent Virginia Tech massacre – each ends in suicide.

Violence is suicidal. Suicide rates of folks in the military and working the chambers of death row execution are astronomical; they kill themselves as they feel the image of God dying in them.
It is in moments like these violent times that grace looks so magnificent. It is in the shadow of such violence, as was the case after the Amish school shooting, that the victims' grace to the murderer’s family shines so brightly. Sometimes all the peacemakers need to do is practice revolutionary patience, and steadfast hope – for the universe bends toward justice, and the entire Christian story demonstrates the triumph of love. And it makes it even more scandalous to think of killing someone who kills – for they, more than anyone in the world, need to hear that they are created for something better than that.

I am reminded of a letter I got from someone currently on death row. After reading some of my writing, he wrote to me to share that he was a living testimony against the myth of redemptive violence (the idea that violence can bring redemption or peace). This fellow on death row told me that the family of his victim argued that he should not be killed for what he did, that he was not beyond redemption, and so he did not receive the death penalty for his crime. “That gave me a lot of time to think about grace,” he said. And he became a Christian in prison. Another story of scandalous love and grace.

So in these days after Easter, even as we see the horror of death, may we be reminded that in the end love wins. Mercy triumphs. Life is more powerful than death. And even those who have committed great violence can have the image of God come to life again within them as they hear the whisper of love. May the whisper of love grow louder than the thunder of violence. May we love loudly.

Shane Claiborne

Blinding light assaults the darkness;
Children wait for guns to cease.
In the midst of war’s confusion,
Make us instruments of peace.

Hungry for your visitation,
We are waiting –
lost,
afraid.

You alone,
O God,
can save us.
Heal the wounds that we have made.


- poet Jean McMullan, written the morning the Iraq War started

Apr 12, 2007

Sanctuary Cities

Recently, Highstown, New Jersey unanimously approved measures allowing undocumented residents to interact with police and city services without fear of being reported to federal authorities. This action exemplifies the increasing number of "sanctuary cities", with no-questions-asked policies on immigration status.

"Most of us know this town would have a heck of a time trying to run itself these days without the immigrants. They're working at the grocery stores, the fast-food places, they're opening businesses and keeping this town alive and young. We're just being practical by telling them, 'Look, we want you in our community, and we want you to feel like you belong.'"
-- Republican Mayor Robert Patten of Highstown, New Jersey

Amen
I'm tired of caring. I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of feeling alone on the front, among excuses and excess.

People are so fast to talk, explain, defend. So slow to listen.
Maybe that's my biggest regret. My greatest offense.
Brian's Coffee Shop

Recently, I visited a Starbucks Coffee Shop in downtown Spokane. It was a cold night, ten degrees below freezing. I went in looking to read and waste some time before I headed to pick up my fiance at the airport.

I sat down near the door with my cup of coffee and my book and began to read. Before I had time to start, I was interrupted by the scene of a homeless man searching the shop for a place to sit. The downtown Starbucks is open until midnight, and it was obvious that the gentleman was trying to get out of the cold for a bit. I watched as he searched unsuccessfully for a seat, then he began to talk to the customers. I couldn't hear the conversations, but I could see the looks in the eyes of the people; the disgust, the leaning away from the man, the lack of acknowledgement.

Enter the Starbucks supervisor. Aggressive. Loud. "Get out of here. You know you can't be in here." As he moved to the door, I began to hear his plea.

"Just looking for a cup of coffee."

I spoke up, with "He just wants a coffee right?" As I stood to talk to the man, who was now outside, the woman, still fairly angry turned back in. I introduced myself, and said I would like to buy him a cup. When I went to the register, the same woman met me and responded to my order of another coffee.

"Don't you know you're just encouraging them?"

I don't know if it was the tone of her voice. The contempt. The anger in her eyes. Disdain.

But I became frustrated. "It's 20 degrees outside, and I'm supposed to regret helping a man to get a cup of coffee?"

She refuses to serve me. I'm a paying customer. My fiance works at Starbucks.

I ask her name. She refuses that as well.
Go figure.

Starbucks sets up a store in the middle of an urban, poor area, keeps it's doors open when the temperature drops well below freezing, then becomes aggressive when an individual tries to seek some comfort from the invasive cold.

I understand the arguments. I understand the business.

But I refuse to stop understanding man.

Cross the street. 7-11. A different cup of coffee, but the same look. The same disdain from the eyes of the attendant as Brian waits, and watches. Through the glass. Through the cold.

"Where are the gentle spirits and the prayerful souls among our leaders? When will we trust the qualifications of credible lifestyle and courageous witness as much as articulation of programs and financial expertise? When will we die to the styles of government and authority that characterize our secular society and choose the style of the gospel? So that what is most evident in those who direct and encourage us is their pilgrim status, their ability to listen and to learn and to change, and their global sensitivity."

-- Joan Puls, "Every Bush is Burning"