Love

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10

My understanding of this verse is that God loves us, even though we fall short many times of loving God in return by loving and respecting all that God created.

I had this point driven home to me in a most vivid way today. I went to see a friend I’ve know since I was six years old yesterday and we talked until 4 a.m. about the difficult time he is going through and he seemed to be feeling better after our talk.

On my bus ride home today, however, one of the 50 or so people on the bus was full of bluster and fury about how a policewoman had seized his car and fined him a few hundred dollars for being disrespectful to her. He went on and on swearing, vowing to rape her as punishment for her doing what presumably was her job and dismissing the court summons as a trivial detail. Needless to say, the families with young children on the bus were speechless.

This very angry young man kept escalating his offensive rhetoric and berated other passengers for not getting off the bus faster. I bit my tongue instead of rebuking him and wondered about this bizarre episode during my walk home.

“A scoundrel plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire.” Proverbs 16:27

Well, this verse certainly would seem to apply in describing this incident. But I couldn’t help but wonder what had filled this 20-something “adult” with so much venom and hatred (and a desire to so publicly make a fool and nuisance of himself).

Then I felt pity for him. I mean, how many friends can someone with this kind of outlook be able to turn to? The friend I had just spent 22 hours with in conversation had confided how isolated and lonely he’d felt during the depths of his troubles. This reminded me of one of Fr. Joe’s sermons in July, when he quoted Pope Benedict XVI defining humanity’s most wretched state as loneliness – that feeling of abandonment and of being unworthy of love.

The young man on the bus certainly didn’t make me feel like getting up and hugging him, to be perfectly frank, but maybe that’s just what he really needed. I have no doubt he will be appearing in court soon and if he makes good on his boast of telling the judge he’ll get his revenge on the policewoman by stalking her and raping her, I have a pretty good idea where he’ll be spending the next few years of his life: in a federal prison where you and I will be paying $125,000 every year for him to be fed, clothed, guarded and – perhaps – rehabilitated.

It’s interesting that earlier this decade Canada’s federal penitentiary system was headed by a revolutionary, and of course controversial, reformer from Denmark named Ole Ingstrup.

Ingstrup reduced the likelihood of Canadian inmates returning to a life of crime to 1 in 4 from 1 in 2 on the premise that men are in jail because they lack respect for people and society in general. (This seems to fit the description of my fellow passenger on the bus.) Ingstrup also started from the idea that women are in prison because of low self-esteem, or lack of respect for themselves.

The chaplain’s office in one prison for women in Ontario reportedly organized a day of manicures and pedicures a few years ago, prompting Toronto’s chief of police at the time, Julian Fantino, to make the following argument to reporters:

“As a society, how can we possibly convince victims and their families that we take their plight seriously when those who have committed truly wicked crimes are given rewards beyond the reach of many Canadians?"

Fantino had a point, but it skirted the basic issue. The question is whether we as a society are best served by a criminal justice system focused exclusively on retribution and punishment or trying to address the root causes of destructive criminal attitudes and attempting to rehabilitate them.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” Matthew 5:38-42

Loving your family and friend is easier than loving the guy who sat near me on the bus today.