Epiphany III - Sunday January 22th, 2006
(by Rev. Glenn Brown)
There isn’t nearly enough rage in our society today. When it comes to guns and violence in our communities, oh, there’s fear, and there is casting about for excuses, and there is blaming, and there is campaigning, and there are easy solutions, all of them having to do with punishment longer and harder. It seems that the limit of our public imagination is to continue to use a process that returns people to criminal life in 80% of the cases, according to the new Chief of Police for Durham. But no real rage, no sense that something so horribly contrary to how life is supposed to be has been harmed ir-redeemably. We don’t really feel permanent consequences, only a sense that there are now more places and kinds of people who must be avoided.
Were there a prophet among us, we would be taught to feel rage, because such problems, if among us, affect us all, and are not to be regarded as things to be avoided, or skirted around. They offend society not only because they are crimes, but because they show that life is not good for everyone of us. That is offensive to God; it should be offensive to us.
But apparently even in Amos’ time, there wasn’t enough proper rage, and so God promises not to forget –ever. Amos’ tirade is against the powerful and greedy. He hears them muttering their resentments about having to close business on the feast days, their unwillingness to celebrate with the ordinary people. He sees them using false measures of quality in their grains, false weights in measuring out the amount of food, and false weights in weighing out the proper amount of money for the other false things. He condemns people who enslave others for unpaid debts, and even the innocents (i.e., their children) because of their debts. These are outrages, not just crimes, so that even nature responds with poor rains and crops. Treat people wrong and you treat the very earth and sky wrong, and there will be consequences; additionally, God will never forget and will repay. Now that’s rage; that’s a sense of proportion; that is a sense of what sin really means.
You look at the video “The Real Toronto,” of which I’ve played just a portion, and you see in what is normal for these people, how contorted life is for them, and you can hear the consequential violence.
Now, according to what we learned at the Mayor’s committee on youth violence, the lives of crime and violence are not restricted to Toronto; some of our own youth in this community commute to Toronto to do their things, and some Torontonians commute out here to cause trouble. We are connected, and we must do some things. We know that the school boards and the recreation department offer a plethora of programs for youth. But we are looking at young people, both teens, and under-12s, who don’t do programs. Their lives are in gangs, or alone, and they aren’t attracted by programs. We know that we are dealing with a small portion of the youth population, but we must nonetheless feel a prophet’s rage, not only about what they do, but about how life is for them. I know that Eugene Rivers from the Boston miracle has told them that in Canada they “live damn near heaven,” but young people who know no history and get all their information from gangsta music know only what they hear and feel. They do not have anything to compare their lives with except what they see and hear about today. They know they are not at the top rungs of the ladder, and they know how to get money and “respect” in a way that is not middle class. And we ought to feel a prophet’s rage about that, too, as well as about a movie on Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo.
The new police chief in Durham tells us that these kids often do not seriously expect to live more than another thirty days and they don’t feel that anything is at risk. Violence is OK because there is nothing better that they can see. And the chief points out, our justice system returns 80% of them to lives of crime. Is there something better? Restorative justice has half that recidivism rate.
The chief would like to have five restorative justice groups in Pickering/Ajax. Each would have trained volunteer facilitators, and participants from the community, as well as the offender and supporters and the victim and supporters. The Young Offenders Act requires that this program be available in every jurisdiction; Durham is only recently getting theirs underway, but more are needed. Each restorative justice circle meets with an offender selected as appropriate by police, and the victim. The offender states what was done and why and apologizes, perhaps also making restitution. The victim describes the full effect upon him or her, so that the offender is confronted with the full dimension of the crime. This can be a revelation, an initial understanding of what was actually done. The facilitator and the participants assist in bringing these realizations forward. If the acknowledgment and apology are accepted, and restitution is successful (and if forgiveness is rendered), then the desired result has been accomplished. Records are kept by the police, and follow-ups as well.
Faith communities can be involved by providing the volunteers (including teens) to be trained facilitators and participants. These in turn may have opportunity to be continuing supports for the offender and victim, particularly if they have no supports in the community themselves. Perhaps they can become involved in good, healthy community, and thereby, heal.
Other possibilities come from referrals made by schools and police to different social service providers who can help kids, and their families, change behaviours. This is of particular concern regarding people under 12, those being mentored by teens already in trouble. It is these kinds of efforts that really intervene in peoples’ lives, that can stop the problems which hit our headlines. But they can do more than stop the problems; they can heal lives and families.
I and other faith leaders are in conversation with the chief about getting the restorative justice groups under way; I have talked with the social service providers, and they now know that we are willing to have them use our facilities for their sessions, and that they can call upon us for people to perhaps provide transportation for people to their sessions; maybe provide child care for younger siblings while the parents attend the sessions with their oldest. We are the communities that can help people claim lives in the broad community. Let us act not out of fear.
Let us act with the clear conviction that God is offended, as are we, not only by the violence, but by the other problems, including mental health issues, that grow violent people. Let us be as concerned about the health of the whole society as we are about the consequences of violence. Let us be not afraid, but outraged. God is, and will never forget the outrages that we try to wash over.
