Nobody listens to me.

Nobody listens to me. I just can’t make people understand what’s wrong with them! Let’s say that someone grievously offends me.  Let’s say that this someone was a serial killer who tortured and murdered innocent people. I feel hatred for this creep.  I have fantasies about what I would do with him if he were under my power.  It would be about doing to him what he did to others so he would know what it was like.  I imagine him begging for mercy and saying that he was sorry. But now that I’m older and more experienced with people I know that torturing the torturer or killing the killer may or may not bring some desired result.  Many criminals behave the way they do for deeper reasons than we understand and it isn’t likely that messing with them is going to move them in any significant way. There just isn’t going to be justice if justice is getting satisfaction for us.  Some criminals simply need to be locked away for the safety of society and nobody is going to change them with punishment. Even images in scripture depict this too-human desire for revenge and project it on God.  The gospel of Luke tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus, depicting the rich man’s agony in burning hell.  I have little investment anymore in these images.  I think that God may have a better way, and if not God, then who? I wish I could remember the author who proposed this, but in my readings this theologian speculated that what’s best in terms of justice is for the offender to truly see the damage he or she has done, and the product of that vision would be deep and excruciating grief.  I think that it is an extremely rare case to accomplish this drastic change of thinking through human intervention. In his writings, Paul hints that in the life after this life, we will see things clearly, with vision no longer obstructed by our human failings, even malformed or damaged brains.  Wouldn’t this be a surprising truth even for criminals when “judgment” is that person’s judgment on himself? This is iffy for me too.  I’m not sure I want to see and have to deal with my own brokenness.  And yet, because God is love, I am also trusting that I will see the good part too, the parts of myself that I haven’t seen as beautiful or intelligent or loving.  All I can say is bring it on so I can see the real me because the real Lord of the universe will be standing with me.