After years of the Israeli government denying access to their birthland, and finding steady employment abroad, how easy it might have been to stay gone.They could have let go of Palestine and moved on, as so much of the world did. But unfortunately, it was paradise.

“I wanted to do something for reconciliation,” Abdullah says. “So I helped start a center called the Palestine Centre for Rapprochement between People. Between the Israelis and Palestinians. And we invited many Israelis to come. ‘Let’s talk.’ And many of them came.”

“Believe me, my friend, I’ll tell you very frankly: as long as there is occupation, as long as there are settlements, as long as there is annexation of the land, there will be no peace between the Arabs and the Israelis. Peace comes when each party takes what it deserves: its rights. And I think we have the right in Jerusalem, we have the right in the West Bank, we have the right to live a decent life. I built my house with my own sweat, and I think I have the right to live in it.”

“Israel must realize,” he goes on, “that building walls eight meters high will not bring her peace. The only way to bring peace is to build bridges of friendship, of peace, between Israel and its neighbors. That is the only way.”

“I am a Christian believer,” he says, his voice full of conviction, “and my Lord told me, ‘Love your enemy.’ I am a pacifist. I taught my children to be pacifists. I don’t like bloodshed. I don’t like anybody to be killed, whether Palestinian or Israeli. We are all the children of God. And I think that God loves me as he loves any Israeli. So we want to live together, side by side.” He’s preaching now, and it’s a sermon I’d listen to every Sunday. Especially because I share his faith, his conviction to love enemies, his commitment to nonviolence. 

There are many places I love in Israel and Palestine But my favorite place of all is the Al Basma Centre, which Abdullah founded.

READ: A Small Step Towards Peace in Israel-Palestine

When Abdullah returned to Palestine after working in Libya, he paid attention to the unmet needs of his hometown. And he decided to “do something.” So a few years after his return, he formed and led a committee to address the high rate of developmental disabilities in and around his community of Beit Sahour.  

Today, the Al Basma Special Rehabilitation Centre welcomes upward of thirty-five to forty “students,” as they’re called. Some are teenagers; others are middle-aged. I’ve visited Al Basma on every trip I’ve made to Palestine since 2007. In the summer of 2010, I volunteered for two months at the center with two college friends. It was one of my most meaningful summers.

I’ve never been part of anything that contained as much joy as Al Basma. It will forever hold a special place in my heart. It is where I learned that intimacy doesn’t need conversation. It is where I learned the depth of forms of communication other than language, and of languages other than those spoken or written. It is where I learned that all one really needs for soul connection is presence, attention, and affection. And it’s where I learned that without the ability to speak a full sentence to one another, you can build trust simply by showing up and coming back.

And every time I come back, I am wrapped in the arms of humans who have resurrected, like Issa. People previously considered useless, embarrassing, and unnecessary are now full of life. They feel as if they are contributing to their community, to a better Beit Sahour, a better Palestine, a better world. At Al Basma, I am held by the hands of beautiful people who just  needed room to realize they are acceptable just as they are. I feel at home in their company. And through all the kisses and saliva, each visit is like another baptism into hope and love.

It’s not only the work of the center that is remarkable; it’s also who is doing it. The center is run by a small group of inspirational women, both Christian and Muslim. Many months of the year, the center falls short of the funds needed to operate. Rather than risk shutting it all down, the women volunteer to take pay cuts from already thin salaries. “What will happen to the students if they can’t come here?” Basma, the director, asked me one day. “They need this place.”

And I’ve seen what she means. The students love the center. “It’s like a beehive,” Abdullah tells me. “Everybody’s working, everybody’s smiling.” To see such community, such collaboration, is good news in times of such fear and animosity. Because Al Basma tells me that religion and difference need not be markers of division. It’s not written in stone anywhere that hospitality and affection shall be suspended in the company of difference. In fact, it’s in the presence of difference that hospitality is often most needed.   

Excerpt adapted from I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World by Michael T. McRay. © 2020 by Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia. Used with permission. www.heraldpress.com.

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” – Matthew 24:42 

When I worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, one of our primary responsibilities was being present for confrontations between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians. We needed to film and document all acts of aggression, hoping that international eyes looking might deter violence.

We needed to keep watch.

For those of us in the United States, the last few years have particularly highlighted the deep divisions scarring our country. Many of us yearn for a better world, and we wonder how long we can wait.

Advent is all about waiting. It is about patience, expectation, and longing. We wait in hope for the arrival of something better than what we have now. This is a joyful hope.

But Advent is about ache too, because longing and waiting are also painful experiences. For our exiled friends in prison longing for freedom, for our oppressed brothers and sisters waiting for justice, for our loved ones on the streets dreaming of a warm home, waiting is agony.

Both Advent and peacemaking are experiences of hope, and hope is the stuff of survival. It’s little wonder people who live in places of suffering are often filled with great hope and joy. As one Palestinian friend said to me, “What choice do we have but to hope? The alternative is death.”

We hope that something more beautiful is coming because we must, because the alternative is unbearable. This work of hope is a muscular work, filled with sorrow, faith, perseverance, and resilience.

In my study, teaching, and practice of peacebuilding, I’ve learned that the work of peace is the work of preparation. We wait, yes, but we have much to do while we wait. My best friend Jeannie Alexander is waiting for her beloved to be freed from the cage of prison. Year after year, she waits. But part of her waiting is working to make better laws so he can return home sooner. The waiting of Advent, like the waiting of peacemaking, is an active waiting. As the African proverb says, “When you pray, move your feet.”

We watch, we wait, we work.

Part of the truth of our world is that it is broken and breaking more every day. But that is only part of the truth. Our world is also a place of beauty, love, and unfathomable generosity. There is kindness; there is laughter; there is healing. In a conversation with Bill Moyers, Thomas Cahill once said, “I have come to the conclusion that there are really only two movements in the world: one is kindness and the other is cruelty.”

I want to be part of the movement toward kindness, one where we might begin speaking to and about one another with something like love. I do believe that a kinder world is on the way. I believe it because I must, and I will watch for it, with eyes open and feet moving.

Will you keep watch with me?

Excerpted from Keep Watch with Me: An Advent Reader for Peacemakers, by Claire Brown and Michael T. McRay (Abingdon Press, 2019). All rights reserved. Used with permission. AbingdonPress.com

But Advent is about ache too — because longing and waiting are also painful experiences. For our exiled friends in prison longing for freedom, for our Palestinian brothers and sisters waiting for justice, for our loved ones on the streets dreaming of a warm home, waiting is agony.

Both Advent and peacemaking are experiences of hope, and hope is the stuff of survival. As one Palestinian friend said to me, “What choice do we have but to hope? The alternative is death.” We hope that something more beautiful is coming because we must, because the alternative is unbearable. And this work of hope is a muscular work, filled with sorrow, faith, perseverance, and resilience.

In my study, teaching, and practice of peacebuilding, I’ve learned that the work of peace is the work of preparation. We wait, yes, but we have much to do while we wait. The waiting of Advent, like the waiting of peacemaking, is an active waiting. As the African proverb says, “When you pray, move your feet.” In Advent and in peacemaking, we watch, we wait, we work.

I’ve been working this fall, along with my friend Claire Brown, to assemble a remarkable list of contributors for a daily Advent reader focused on what Advent has to say about peacemaking. It’s called Keep Watch with Me.

I want to invite you all to be part of this Advent journey. Subscribers will hear from writers who are black, white, LGBTQ, Latinx, Palestinian, incarcerated, Native American, Australian, Irish, South African, clergy, laity, activists, authors, organizers, and more. Every day, readers will get delivered to their inbox a daily reading, a unique reflection from one of the above writers, a prayer, and a spiritual practice crafted by Claire Brown.

RLC contributors like Shane Claiborne, Brian McLaren, Gareth Higgins, Micky ScottBey Jones, Mark Charles, Doug Pagitt, and myself will be part of this Advent series. Already almost 5,000 subscribers from every U.S. state and 50+ countries have signed up to journey with us, and we created a Facebook discussion group for us to all meet each other and process the reflections together. Subscribe for free at rebrand.ly/advent2017.

In this time of great division, this is the Advent reader we might just need — because what we need is another way to process the pain and beauty of where we are. This Advent reader won’t just give you comfort and joy; it will tell you the truth of waiting.

Come keep watch with us.

2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. ² They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.”

³ When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him.

¹³ An angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up. Take the child and his mother and escape to a nearby country. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon search for the child in order to kill him.” ¹⁴ Herod grew worried at the threat this child could pose to his rule, and so he sent soldiers to kill all the children in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding territory who were two years old and younger. ¹⁵ Joseph got up and, during the night, took Jesus and Mary and fled to a nearby land that was known to many as a place of refuge for persecuted people.

¹⁶  When they arrived at the country’s border, soldiers stopped them. “You cannot enter. Go back home,” they said. ¹⁷ Joseph plead, “Please you must grant us entry. We are not safe where we came from. Our lives are in danger. We are simply seeking safety. We’ve heard this is a place of great opportunity, a land of the free, that welcomes the huddled masses fleeing persecution.” ¹⁹ But the soldiers responded, “You are right that this country has been known for this. Long have we welcomed the tired, the poor, and all those yearning to breathe free. But our supreme leader has issued a new edict closing our borders and denying entry to all those seeking refuge here. Your family may be no threat now, but who knows what your child may grow up to be. Our country must come first.”

²⁰ Joseph and Mary, distraught and despairing, took the child Jesus and returned to Judea, hoping to avoid Herod’s persecution. ²¹ They had not been back long before Herod’s men found them and brought them to the palace, where Herod imprisoned Joseph, forced Mary into his harem, and killed Jesus.

Here ends the gospel.

In December I began working for a non-profit law firm that provides free assistance to vulnerable Tennesseans trying to access affordable health care. One of our current challenges is fighting for the passage of Governor Bill Haslam’s health care plan called Insure Tennessee. This plan would provide affordable health coverage to more than 280, 000 people in our state who currently have no option for health insurance. It would bring over one billion Tennessee tax dollars back to our state every year, not costing the taxpayer a single extra dime, and saving 20, 000 jobs by helping our more than 40 at-risk hospitals stay open. We have already had six hospitals close due to the overwhelming costs of uncompensated care. The Governor proposed a plan that would fix this. But two legislative sessions later, our legislators still have not passed it.

I care about Insure Tennessee because I’m a Tennessean and a Christian. Jesus said he came to proclaim good news to the poor. I believe this plan would be just that.

Recently, Bruce Parks, a 50 year old with major heart issues and no health insurance, met with his state representative to ask him to support Insure Tennessee. His legislator expressed his sympathy but said he felt Tennesseans should be required to work at least part-time in order to get health coverage. The more I’ve paid attention to the news around Insure Tennessee, the more it seems this argument appears from legislators: people must work to deserve health care. Never mind the fact that Bruce has worked his entire life until a massive heart attack almost killed him and reduced his heart to 15% capacity. Doctors tell him, without a pacemaker, he may die if he returned to work. But without insurance, he can’t get that pacemaker. The cycle is vicious, while the legislators remain indifferent.

Since a great many of these same legislators claim to be Christians–believers in that good news Jesus came to proclaim to the poor–I want to rewrite two familiar gospel stories to reflect these legislators’ apparent values. I wonder how many people would follow Jesus if he had behaved like this.

Luke 18:35-43

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.

He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see, ” he replied.

Jesus said to him, “I am sure, but should you not have considered this before you began begging? Instead of spending your life on the side of the road asking for money, why not go to the businesses throughout Jericho and ask for work?”

“Lord, ” the man began, shocked at Jesus’s response, “I would work if I were well, but employers believe me unable to perform any useful labor, for I am blind.”

Jesus began to turn away. “I am sorry, my hands are tied. In order to heal you, I need you to work. Otherwise, you are just receiving handouts, and I am enabling laziness.”

Jesus moved ahead of the crowd, while the blind man sat in silence, stunned, hoping never to encounter Jesus of Nazareth again.

Luke 6:6-10

[One] Sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.

Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”

He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so. Then Jesus said, “Are you currently working?”

The man with the shriveled hand looked up in surprise. “No, ” he said, “no one will hire me with my hand shriveled in this way.”

So Jesus asked, “When was your last job?” The man replied that it had been some years since he could work. Then Jesus turned to the Pharisees and all those around and said, “Truly I say to you, unless a man works, he shall not be healed. The man who labors shall earn his due. The man who does not must go without.”

The man with the shriveled hand recoiled from Jesus. “How can I work? No one will hire me with this hand! If you healed me, I could return to the fields or learn a new trade.” Some who had gathered began nodding in understanding, recognizing the poor circumstance of the man. Without healing, he could not work, but without work, he would not be healed.

Yet Jesus remained unmoved. “If I were to heal you now, would not word spread? Would not the multitudes begin ceasing their labor, having no reason to continue working when I might heal their ailments without condition? Will the masses not take advantage of my power? Instead I say to you, find means by which to earn some manner of living, and then I will consider restoring your hand to you.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were joyful and began to discuss with one another how they might include Jesus among their ranks.

I wonder how many people would follow this Jesus. I know I wouldn’t.

“From Behind the Walls” is a series of stories and prayers on encounters Michael McRay had while serving as a volunteer prison chaplain. 

He leaned over and whispered to me, “What the hell does prison even mean right now?” It was perhaps the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.

The chapel in Building 11 was full. Incarcerated and free-world brothers and sisters interwove on the wooden pews. Hardly a seat was vacant that Friday night. At the front of the chapel, Anthony had spread a spectacular arrangement of cloths, rugs, and papers, ornaments that brought color to an otherwise colorless concrete chamber. Sitting on the decorations were four musicians, each dressed in the attire appropriate for a service of Indian Hindu music.

The leader instructed us. “Chant in unison: OM. Sustain this sound. Try to still your whole being. Center yourself. Find your center through that sound and focus on that. Feel the vibrations in your whole body.” Over the next half hour, she led us in various Hindu chants and rhythms, but we continued to circle back to “OM.”

Related: What I Saw in a Prison Inmate’s Eyes

I closed my eyes and straightened my spine against the hard back of the pew. I rested my feet flat on the floor and could feel the vibrations from the room traveling up my legs. Time seemed to stop. My whole being resonated with tremors of “OM, ” produced from my lungs and those of fifty others. I had no idea how long we had been chanting; my focus held like a laser point on the all-consuming sound reverberating throughout the chapel.

Thirty minutes into the service, my dear friend Jay, a man already incarcerated for 16 years with the rest of his life to go, turned to me and said, “What the hell does prison even mean right now?” I felt I could cry it was so beautiful. It was beautiful because it was true. It was beautiful because he said it. It was beautiful because I felt it. For Jay at that moment, imprisonment was nonsensical. It did not compute. For me, all the weight of my own burdens of fear and shame disappeared, swept up in the swirling sounds of instrument and voice. The music had moved us, in emotion and dimension. We were no longer where we were when the service began. The sounds stirred our being.

What the hell did prison even mean then?

In those moments, prison didn’t mean isolation. It didn’t mean exile or punishment. It didn’t mean suffering. Really, prison didn’t mean much of anything. The vibrations of the music collapsed the walls and transported us somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. We sang “OM” and we were lost, immersed in a sea of tranquility. I have heard that “OM” is the central sound of the universe – the sound from which all sound comes, and to which all sound returns. It is the auditory source of everything, the deep container that unites and holds all sonic utterances. That night, it united and held us, and transported us beyond. Jay’s question said everything – what did prison mean right then?

Also by Michael: “Peace and Justice Have Kissed” – Conflict Resolution in Israel-Palestine

In those moments, we were all free.

Prayer:

O God, in you we live, and move, and have our being. I am grateful for the blessing of music, its transporting and transforming power. It liberates us when we are enclosed. It lifts us when we are depressed. It humbles us when we exalt ourselves. It gives us energy when we have none. It heals us when we are broken. It moves us when we are too still. It stills us when we are too active.

I want to believe in your spirit the way I believe in music. Help my unbelief. 

“From Behind the Walls” is a series of stories and prayers on encounters Michael McRay had while serving as a volunteer prison chaplain. 

Disclaimer: Contains somewhat graphic descriptions of blood and violence. All names of inmates have been changed.

That particular Friday in December began as my Fridays usually did: quiet morning of conversation with my grandmother, silent meditation, and a thirty minute drive to the prison where I volunteered as a chaplain. The first couple of hours inside the compound were filled with laughter, as the chaplain’s department held a pizza party celebrating the completion of Christmas package distribution. I personally made quick work of four pieces, and then, grabbing a handheld radio, headed to Unit 4 – where I would not be making quick work.

This was my third visit to Unit 4, a maximum security unit, where two of the four pods – the ones to which I was assigned – contain 24 cells that hold both young and old men designated as “mental health” inmates. This unit is certainly the most violent in the prison as stress levels stay dangerously high. I breathed in deeply and walked through the razor wire gate and into the concrete building.

The smell hit me first, as it always did. With so much blood and human waste regularly decorating the walls, a vulgar stench remains, no matter how much scrubbing occurs. Because of “incidents” that day, the Officer-In-Charge would not permit any inmate to be brought out for conversation. I would have to go cell-side.

Before entering, an officer warned me that the pod had “been crazy” all day. Acknowledging his caution, I called into the radio unit, “Charlie main, Charlie gate, ” and within seconds, the thick steel door and iron gate opened, granting me access to the pod. As soon as the gate closed behind me, a cacophony of “Chaplain, chaplain!” sounded from all corners of the pod. I shouted from the entrance that I would be around to see each man. I started with Mr. Freeman, a man I met just a few weeks earlier in the infirmary after he had set fire to the shirt on his back to get attention. We seem to have connected surprisingly well that day, and he had asked me to come see him whenever I could. I had given him two books to read – one, a book on violence and shame; and the other, my own book on my work in the West Bank. Talking through the small gap where his steel door meets the wall, we discussed the books and how he was doing.

As I moved through the pod, I began to notice escalating noise coming from a cell in the center of the far wall. I skipped ahead to that cell, one that belonged to Mr. Saylor, who within two hours would be rushed to the hospital, close to death.

“Howdy, Mr. Saylor, ” I greeted cordially. Having never met him before, I introduced myself. “I’m Chaplain McRay.”

“OK, ” he shrugged, smirking. His clean face looked young, and I guessed we must be very close in age. An internet search later confirmed my suspicion and informed me that he had just begun his eighth year of imprisonment. Giving him the simple sign of respect I give to all men I visit, I looked him in the eyes while we talked. Many of the men’s eyes show despair, windows into souls battered under the current system of retribution. Mr. Saylor’s showed something different: fire.

“Are you doing OK?” I asked him smiling, trying to keep a positive demeanor so as not to provoke any aggression.

Mr. Saylor titled his head as he looked at me through the glass. He was bouncing slightly, almost as if he was excited about something. Then his right hand took a small razor and quickly cut his left forearm. Raking his hand through the blood, he then smeared it down his face, over his nose, mouth, and chin. One glob rested above his eye.

Related: Remember Those Who Are in Prison

“Do I look OK?” he challenged. His whole demeanor suggested he wanted me to be intimidated, impressed, perhaps even to quiver in awe. I laughed instead, trying to play a different role than the seeming “terrified spectator” part he had scripted for me.

“No, sir, ” I chuckled, “you do not. You actually look very not OK.” He just kept smiling. “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.

“Just get me a straight ticket to the road to hell!” He had a lively country accent, and he swayed back and forth as he spoke. I asked him why he wanted to go to hell. “Everybody wants to go hell!” There was an unsettling confidence in his laugh.

Calmly, I countered, “I don’t think anyone really wants to go to hell. Why do you?”

“Ah, it’ll be fun, ” he told me, the fire in his eyes intensifying, “All that buurrrnin!” The way he drew out his words reminded me of Andy Taylor in the early seasons of The Andy Griffith Show.

When I asked him if he enjoyed burning, he said, “Sure I do!” and then lifted his left arm. It was spotted with burn marks and blood from various razor cuts that day. Scars ran in between, telling me this was not the first day he had drawn blood from that limb.

“That looks quite painful, ” I confessed, removing some cheer from my tone.

“Nah, not yet!” he grinned. I asked him what was wrong: Had something happened that day? “Man, I’m just fuckin’ tired of it!” he shouted. “Nobody here cares about me!”

I looked him straight in the eyes, and said as genuinely as I could, “I’m trying to care, Mr. Saylor. That’s why I’m standing here talking to you.”

“Ah, you don’t give a shit about me, ” he hollered, turning around laughing. He walked back toward his bed, and I knew he had no reason to believe I cared. He had never seen me before in his life. Why should he trust me?

When he returned to the narrow door window, I told him I needed to call medical since he was bleeding. When I asked an officer to make the call he informed me I had to leave the pod. I protested, but in vain. Apologizing to Mr. Saylor, I turned to walk down the stairs, passing three officers on their way up to his cell.

Before I reached the floor, I heard one shout, “He’s squirting! He got an artery!” The corporal shouted through the radio unit, “Get medical in here now!” Then he yelled to me to run find latex gloves in the central staff pod. Searching frantically, I located two pairs and rushed back into the pod and up the stairs. Taking the gloves from me, the corporal instructed me to wait on the lower level. Four officers gathered at his open door, and from where I stood below, I could see it all.

Just as I had walked away from Mr. Saylor’s door, he had sliced clean through an artery in the bend of his left arm. Streaks of blood now covered his whitewashed walls, as if someone had taken a squirt bottle and turned circles in the room, squeezing constantly. I saw him sitting calmly on his bed at the back of the cell, a laser quivering on his chest from the Taser one officer was pointing at him. A large gash stretched across his arm, blood streaming down his forearm, onto his pants. His face, shirt, and bed were red with blood, and he just sat there, still, smiling at the prison staff in his doorway. The officers handcuffed him so he could not cut anymore, and the medical team wrapped a bandage around the severed artery. But by that time, he had already lost so much blood that he soon collapsed, unconscious.

Four officers carried him down the stairs, his arms and legs stretched out and his head hanging back over their shoulders. They carried him out of the pod and toward the infirmary. I stood there, perhaps in shock, unaware of any conscious thoughts. It was as if I was in stupor. Suddenly, I regained a sense of awareness as I heard another man calling for me. Hustling up the stairs, I moved toward his cell and peered into the window. I saw Mr. Jackson there, tattoos covering his face, anger in his eyes, and nothing in his cell.

In cries of anguish, he told me what happened. Yesterday, he had lived in the cell across the pod, next to Mr. Waylen, and when Mr. Waylen reached through his pie flap and threw something into Mr. Jackson’s cell, Mr. Jackson responded by throwing feces back at him. But these feces hit an officer instead. Mr. Jackson cried out to me, “I didn’t mean to hit the officer! I told him over and over, ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’ But they won’t listen to me! I can’t take it anymore! I can’t take it!” He dropped to his bed, head in his hands, body shaking in anger.

My eyes scanned his cell. All his possessions had been taken in punishment. Nothing remained but a coarse blanket. The logic of retribution seemed to spread itself plainly before me: punish the wrongdoer, and when he reacts, punish him harder, and then punish him even harder. This system takes angry, broken people and locks them in small rooms, alone, with very few possessions or constructive human contact, and then acts bewildered when these repressed humans snap. Offering no more than one hour of recreation time per day in a metal cage, serving food that might repel even the most famished of dogs, and taking all one’s earthly possessions with each misdemeanor, our current system shames and provokes these incarcerated men until they erupt. And when they do erupt, they are punished more.

Mr. Jackson could not take it anymore. I nearly wept listening to him. His desperation almost broke me on the spot, and it took all I had to keep it together. He plead with me, insisting he was in the right and that all he really wanted was to know when he would get his property back. “Just a date!” he cried out. “That’s all I need! Just a date. I’ll be fine if I just know a date. But nobody will tell me. Nobody will stand up for me!”

Numerous times while listening to him, I had to ask him to pause because I could not hear him. The pod had descended into chaos after Mr. Saylor was removed. Men were horse-kicking their doors, shouting at each other and at officers. Some were throwing things in fits of rage. I felt consumed in noise. Even with my ear pressed to the door and Mr. Jackson shouting on the other side, I could barely hear him. It was as if everyone had snapped at once, a collective breakdown.

Promising Mr. Jackson I would bring him a book to read to keep his mind occupied until the staff returned his property, I moved swiftly around the pod, trying to deescalate, calming those men with razors in hand and fury in their eyes. The pod was like a war zone. I felt I had no idea what I was supposed to do. What was I supposed to say? How was I supposed to say it? I was just making it up as I went. But one by one, the men began to put their razors away.

I headed out of Unit 4 and walked back to the chaplain’s office to get a couple of books for Mr. Jackson. As I walked into the crisp cold air, the only words I could verbally muster were the two lines that have begun monastic prayers for centuries: “O God, come to our assistance. O Lord, make haste to help us.” Over and over, I repeated the mantra as I walked.

Back at the chaplain’s office, the head chaplain was rushing out the door to catch the ambulance that was ferrying Mr. Saylor to the hospital. He was fading. She called me from the ambulance to ask exactly what happened. I told her and asked if he was going to be OK. “He may die, ” she said. I felt paralyzed.

Also by Michael: Jesus Under Lockdown; From Behind the Walls, Pt. 1

When I regained mobility, I grabbed two books from the library and made haste back to Unit 4. Before I entered the unit, I closed my eyes and prayed the only other appropriate prayer I could think of: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.” Inside, I slid the two books under Mr. Jackson’s door. He expressed great gratitude, and his eyes lit up when I told him I wrote one of the books, and that it was his to keep. “This gives me some closure, ” he told me. I sighed gently from relief.

When I arrived back at the chapel, the Friday night service had begun. I snuck in quietly to a pew against a side wall. The chaplain was back at the prison, sitting just in front of me. She reached back and squeezed my hand, whispering that Mr. Saylor was stable. Just a few minutes later, I slipped back out, crouched in a corner of the hall, and wept.

I had not been prepared for what I saw that day.

Prayer:

O God, come to our assistance. O Lord, make haste to help us.

God, where are you? How come when we call in our hours of great distress, in our moments of deepest need, you do not answer?

Perhaps you too were weeping, crouched in the corner of a hallway, and could not get up. Perhaps you too choked on your tears and could not raise your voice. In some ways, if I knew that was true, I think it would help. To know you also can be so shocked by our horribleness to each other that you cannot speak, to know that you also can be so traumatized by walking in hell that you must stop to weep, would give me some manner of peace.

Jesus, you said that when we encountered the least of these in prison, we encountered you. I try to believe that.

But was that really you in there? Was that really you the officers carried out of the unit to the ambulance? I didn’t expect you to look like that. I didn’t think you would have a razor in your hand. I didn’t think you would smear blood on your face while I talked with you. Have the principalities and powers really broken you so brutally that even you can’t resist the demons of despair, fury, and self-hatred? I knew you would be in prison, Lord. That’s why I came. But I didn’t think you would be in hell.

O Lord, mother and father of a broken people, what we have created today, this so-called “justice system, ” is not justice. It is hell. It is darkness and flame. It consumes those who get close. It brutalizes souls. Some days I feel rage at those who have created and perpetuate such a demonic system. I know you said to forgive them for they know not what they do. But sometimes I think they do.

Teach us to improve our justice, Holy Spirit, and guide us in the way of mercy and truth.

Breathe into me your spirit of loving kindness, of a justice kissed by mercy, and a truth wed with peace. May I be as present as possible with each person I meet behind those walls. And may I always remember that whatever I do for them, I do for you.

Amen. 

“From Behind the Walls” is a series of stories and prayers on encounters Michael McRay had while serving as a volunteer prison chaplain.

Disclaimer: The names of inmates have been changed.

That Friday, I saw Jesus in the infirmary.

Encountering Christ in prison was one of the primary purposes for my first visit behind the walls nearly 4 ½ years ago. I have often struggled in my life to understand how and where God “works” in the world. Everything changed for me when, at 19, I stood next to my father before the death-filled ovens of Auschwitz in Poland on a cold, wet winter day, and he said, “Whatever you believe about God has to make sense right here or it can’t make sense anywhere.” From then on, little has made sense. But I have held tightly to Jesus’s claim in Matthew 25 that he is encountered when we encounter the “least of these”: the hungry, the naked, the alone, the sick, the imprisoned. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote of learning to the see the world “from below…from the perspective of those who suffer.” When we see the world “from below, ” we see where Jesus is hanging out. This particular day, he was in the infirmary, and his name was Charlie Vick.

I have known Charlie for a while now. I actually roomed with a relative of his for three years during undergrad, and around two years ago, Charlie joined the Saturday-night contemplative study group I’ve been a part of since early 2010. Charlie has lived incarcerated for nearly 20 of his 40 years on this earth. When the head chaplain at the prison asked me to make rounds at the infirmary, I assumed it would be to visit with one of the men from the maximum security side – like the young man I saw the week before who set fire to the shirt on his back in order to gain attention. But instead, the chaplain asked me to see Charlie. “Mr. Hudson died, ” she said.

Related: What I Saw in a Prison Inmate’s Eyes

I walked out of the chaplain’s office and up the sidewalk to the infirmary, a long white brick building adjacent to Building 11 where the chaplain’s office is located. Inside, I entered into the Long Hall, one of the two corridors housing inmates who, among other reasons, are placed on suicide watch, mental health seclusion, or have serious medical needs. The halls are cold and lifeless, except for the warm bodies kept in solitary within the dull cells. Charlie was caged at the far end of the Long Hall. As I walked toward his temporary residence, other men on the hall called out to me. “Damn dude!” one greeted, “you look like a rock star.” This was undoubtedly in reference to the previous day’s haircut, returning to a look that had unfortunately elicited many a “Hey Justin Bieber!” from jeering voices inside Units 3 and 4 on the max side. Charlie heard me enter the hall and was standing at his window waiting for me.

“Hey Mike, ” his bass voice welcomed, “Thanks for stopping by.” I always love to see Charlie. He is a warm soul, kind and compassionate, with an embrace you could get lost in. He is a big man, tall and stout, with long, graying hair, fashioned like a mullet pulled back in a ponytail. His face often shows stubble, sometimes even a goatee, but that day he was clean shaven. His laugh is deep and inviting, and he often tries to lift other’s spirits with encouraging words. But when I saw him that day, his eyes showed grief. After all, Mr. Hudson had died.

I knew Mr. Hudson’s health had been in rapid decline for months. His stomach had swollen to the point of seeming pregnancy and required frequent drainage. The prison’s private medical provider, however, did little to assist Mr. Hudson’s healing or even alleviate his excruciating pain. “Time and again, ” Charlie told me, “Hudson’d say he wished he had a gun so he could just end it already and stop hurtin’ so bad.” Mr. Hudson was only 55, but he appeared to be approaching his late 60s.

His health failure required constant care-taking, an activity the prison did not feel obliged to undertake. But Charlie did. Though he had only met Mr. Hudson less than a year ago, he requested Mr. Hudson become his “celly” (cell-mate) back in the summer when Mr. Hudson’s health began to plummet. I wondered if Charlie realized just how serious a responsibility he had accepted. Regardless, from the moment Mr. Hudson moved into Charlie’s cell in Unit 6, Charlie rarely left his side. But now, Mr. Hudson had left Charlie’s, and Charlie was under lockdown.

As I stood outside the massive steel door dividing us, I wondered what to say. For a few moments, we just stood there, looking at each other and the tile floor, as if something more powerful than us was compelling a reverent silence in memory of the recently departed. Finally, I broke the initial quiet, saying the only appropriate thing I could think of: “I’m sorry, Charlie. How are you feeling?”

He looked away and began nodding. “I’m OK. My emotions are everywhere though. I feel angry, then sad, then relieved, then angry again.” He looked back at me, tears beginning to brim. “I’m just real happy he’s not suffering no more.” Charlie told me Mr. Hudson passed peacefully in his cell, surrounded by Charlie, the chaplain, and a couple other friends. The months leading to his death nearly incapacitated Mr. Hudson. His pain was immense, but it’s gone now, and for that, we felt grateful.

I wondered if there was more to Charlie’s feeling of relief than simply that Mr. Hudson’s suffering had ceased. I wondered if he felt relief that his full-time care-taking role had also ended. I suspected that such thoughts produced guilt and were unwelcome in his processing. I carefully explored this with him, gently encouraging him to release such guilt and allow himself to feel the very human emotion of grateful relief from such exhausting service.

“It definitely was a lot of work, ” he allowed, chuckling to himself the way one does when reminiscing about an unbelievable happening. “I was with him through it all.”

His eyes reddened as he recounted the months of constant attentiveness. A while back, Mr. Hudson lost the strength to walk even relatively short distances. Frequently, as I entered the compound for chaplaincy work or to teach, I would see Charlie, leading the evening procession to the chow hall, pushing Mr. Hudson’s wheelchair in front of him. Anytime Mr. Hudson required moving, Charlie’s sturdy arms guided his wheelchair to the necessary destination. Back in their cell, Charlie cooked hot meals for Mr. Hudson in the microwave and fed him when Mr. Hudson lacked the sufficient strength for even such simple actions. In the last couple of weeks, Mr. Hudson lost control of nearly all physical faculties.

“He couldn’t even go to the bathroom without help, ” Charlie confessed, shaking his head. “I’d pick him up off his bunk and carry him to the toilet. He couldn’t even sit up, so he’d lean his head against my chest. He was bleeding internally so he had blood on him, too. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll clean ya up when you’re finished, ‘ I told him.” Charlie cared for Mr. Hudson like that until the end. He gave completely and unreservedly of himself to preserve whatever dignity he could for Mr. Hudson, to ease his suffering, and ensure that he would not die alone. Mr. Hudson died on a Saturday night, and Charlie was placed on lockdown in the infirmary.

Apparently, this is prison protocol. Because Mr. Hudson died in his cell, the cell must be declared a “crime scene.” Charlie was present, so he is contained in solitary pending the conclusion of the investigation. Besides the fact that the chaplain herself was also present, the prison knew for months that Mr. Hudson was dying. His death was expected, perhaps even encouraged though the system’s dehumanizing apathy. Despite all this, Charlie – the man who exhausted himself for months in selfless service to the needs of Mr. Hudson – must mourn in solitary.

When Charlie finished his story, I placed my hand on the thin glass window in the door, pointing at him. “I am inspired by you Charlie. You have done exactly as I suspect Jesus would have.”

In retrospect, that statement seems obvious, since it was in fact Christ with whom I spoke, God-in-the-flesh. His hair was grayer than most religious paintings depict, and his skin much lighter than the Middle Eastern Jew of the 1st century.

Also by Michael: It’s Time to Stop Killing…A Former Tennessee Prison Chaplain on Capital Punishment

Nevertheless, I talked with Jesus in prison that day. His name was Charlie, and the prison had him under lockdown.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

If the system that we’ve created baffles me, it must surely baffle you – for you are just. We humans can astound sometimes with our inhumanity to one another. To punish a man for showing compassion and selflessness, to punish Charlie for love, devotion, and kindness… It hurts and angers me. I want to tear down the steel doors and set him free! Christ, the Scriptures say you have come to set the prisoners free. How long must we wait, O Lord, for it to be so?

I struggle with waiting. I am impatient. I know this. When I see something I want, I want it now. At that very instant. I am a child of the culture of instant gratification. You know that I work diligently to change this about myself. But this is an ongoing process, and today, living with serenity in the moment is a true challenge for me.

This is especially true regarding injustice. Witnessing the powerful abuse their power boils my blood. I want to throw tables like you did. I want to drive them out like you did. I want to yell and scream and curse.

God of justice and mercy, grant me the courage to cleanse the temple, grant me the serenity to wait and watch patiently, and grant me the wisdom to know which is needed. 

And please, please, have mercy.

For our inhumanity to each other – Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

For our condemnation of broken people to broken systems – Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

For believing in punishment when restoration is needed – Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

For abusing our power and creating suffering – Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

For not always seeing the image of you in each human being – Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.

Amen.

Israeli bombs demolish Gaza. Hamas rockets launch toward Israel. Palestinians die in scores. Israelis take cover amidst the wailing sirens. The tit-for-tat violence has escalated and deescalated countless times over the past 70 years. Turning on the U.S. news cycle, I hear language of “ceasefire” and “truce” tossed about like a hot potato.  Though a ceasefire’s necessity is certainly immediate, we cannot make the mistake of believing it is sufficient.

I heard someone say while I was studying in Belfast that, regarding the 30-year Troubles in Northern Ireland, it might be said that “justice was sacrificed for peace.” Ostensibly, such a comment may seem appropriate, but only when “peace” references the notion of negative peace – that is, a lack of physical violence.

While negative peace is indeed necessary, ceasefires are not the proverbial recipe for sustainable peace after violent conflict, and certainly not in deeply divided and inextricably connected societies like in Northern Ireland, or in Israel and Occupied Palestine.

Numerous conflict resolution theorists and practitioners encourage us to see beyond the limitations of negative peace and instead ultimately strive for positive peace – that is, peace characterized by justice and the additional address of structural and cultural violence, as well as physical. In Israel and Occupied Palestine – a land hot with conflict for a century – negative peace will not suffice in the end because the immediate physical violence is not the fundamental issue there. To create a lasting peace, practitioners must excavate the cratered terrain of conflict, digging below the surface of the presenting problems to find the core issues from which the presenting ones stem.

Related: Left Behind, Failed Peace, and the Human Implications of (bad) Theology

The core problem in Israel and Occupied Palestine is not the recent escalation of violence between Israel and Gazan militants. Rather, the core issue there is injustice. It is a military occupation and blockade that restricts the movement and liberty of an entire people group, suffocating their livelihood, and warehousing them like inmates under mass incarceration. News correspondents have analyzed the timeline of the last weeks in order to debate whether the responsibility for the recent violence lies primarily with Israel or Hamas. Such attempts, however, are shortsighted.

This conflict did not begin last week with Hamas rockets, Israeli bombs, or the murder of settler youths and subsequent revenge killing of a Palestinian teen. The animosity can be traced back numerous decades, and it all comes back to land. Both peoples claim the same land – their stories, ancestors, songs, and trees connect them to that place. Though each people’s longing for the land may be symmetrical, the conflict itself is not.

In fact, the language of “conflict” is misleading – has been for some time. This is not an even fight that will end in stalemate, like in Belfast. Israel is winning and always has been, which is why the peace talks never succeed. Israel has little incentive for peace. It controls an entire people group, and with each new settlement built, secures itself yet another piece of Palestinian land.

But Israel cannot expect to occupy another nation without retaliation. On an interpersonal level, if I push some smaller, weaker individual into a corner and use my foot to crush his or her neck, I should surely expect that eventually that person will fight back. To announce, “I will stop crushing you when you stop hitting me” is as foolish as it is unfair. You cannot oppress a people and then claim “self-defense” when they fight back.

Undoubtedly, some readers will offer accusations of imbalance and lack of objectivity. But occupations and apartheid are not balanced. They are not objective or unbiased. The scales of justice are heavily tipped, favoring Israel. If balance and equality are to be realized, then the Palestinians must be set free from the noose of external impositions and devastating restrictions.

This is no way to suggest that Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Jerusalem, or anywhere else deserve Hamas’ missiles. It is right to fear for their safety and to grieve when the rockets destroy lives. Every death is tragic. But crushing Gaza will not protect Israeli citizens.

For Israel to permanently expel Hamas, it must maintain an occupation of Gaza. Israel knows this and knows the enormous ramifications of such. Full military occupation on two fronts is surely too daunting for Israeli leaders to pursue. The demographic threat of annexation is also too threatening, whether in the context of apartheid or true democracy. The only hope Israel could have had in such overwhelming force towards Gaza is to crush the Palestinian spirit into accepting the status quo and submitting to Israeli authority. But Israel surely knows this can never happen.

The dream of Israel’s occupation has been to press down on the Palestinians so unbearably that they are forced to leave. One needs only to spend some time in the West Bank or Gaza before this becomes obvious. Yet, Israel has continually found that the harder they suppress the Palestinians, the deeper the Palestinian feet become rooted in the soil. Theirs is a struggle for freedom and self-determination. Collective punishment will not make them leave. It will only fan the flame of their determination and reignite their insurrection.

If Israel wants peace and security, as it claims, it must end the occupation and blockade of the Palestinian territories. Hamas must disarm, but Israel cannot expect such a unilateral move from an occupied or blockaded people. As the structured and recognized power, the first move toward peace lies with Israel. To be satisfied with ceasefires and conflict settlement without offering any intention to deal with the deeper, motivating factors of injustice and external control is at best naïve and at worst enabling.

Also by Michael: It’s Time to Stop Killing! A Former Tennessee Prison Chaplain on Capital Punishment

Israel has the right to security, and it is justified in its concern for such. But those who claim unwarranted aggression from the Palestinians must stop fooling themselves that Palestinians have an innate hatred towards the Jewish people and that military occupation and blockade have nothing to do with Palestinian violence. They have everything to do with it.

Justice cannot be sacrificed for sustainable peace. Rather, justice is the foundation.

For more on the recent wave of violence, click here.

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Michael McRay holds an MPhil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation from Trinity College Dublin at Belfast. He is an adjunct professor in forgiveness and reconciliation, international conflict resolution, restorative justice, and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. He has visited Israel and Palestine numerous times and worked with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Hebron. He is the author of Letters from “Apartheid Street”: A Christian Peacemaker in Occupied Palestine. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

The following is a revised version of comments Michael shared on a panel discussion at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, Tennessee on June 19, 2014.

I am firmly against capital punishment. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, where the state’s “death row” inmates reside at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. For a while, I served as a volunteer chaplain there and spent time with the men on “death row, ” often praying for the abolition of the death penalty. Tennessee has appeared often in the recent news cycles after it decided in April to bring back the electric chair as a possible means of execution. As a Tennessee citizen, teacher, Christian, and involved prison volunteer, I want to share some thoughts on the death penalty.

As one learns studying conflict resolution, simply arguing positions achieves little benefit, as it tends only to cement the conflicting parties in their original positions. Instead, we must look beneath the positions to what props them up. What are the values, interests, and needs that support our positions? Potentially, the further down this pyramid we go, the more likely we are to find areas of commonality.

There are myriad arguments to be made against capital punishment. One could speak of the economic issues, pointing out that the majority of “death row” inmates come from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds. Or one could note that the death penalty costs the taxpayers far more money than even housing inmates on life without parole charges.

One could denounce the death penalty on racial grounds, explaining that a defendant is more than three times as likely to face the death penalty for killing a white person as a defendant accused of murdering a person of color. This country has built itself on favoritism for light-skinned bodies, a reality visible not only in state executions, but also in the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and modern-day mass incarceration, a progression brilliantly exposed in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow.

Related: Jesus, at least, Opposed the Death Penalty

One could also speak to the significant flaws in capital punishment, noting that, according to a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences, 4% of death row inmates are in fact innocent.

One could even reject the death penalty on religious grounds. Like many here in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, I come out of the Christian tradition. And as my friend Shane Claiborne has said, this is a tradition that holds to the dual conviction that none of us are above reproach or beyond redemption. In a state where over 80% of the population claims to be Christian, I am shocked that April’s electric chair bill passed in the House 68-13 – on the day before Good Friday, no less – a day when Christians remember the death of Jesus, who was also executed on death row.

Not only must pro-death-penalty Christians wrestle with the fact that we follow an executed Christ, but our Scriptures also contain such figures as the Apostle Paul, formerly known as Saul, a man whom the Early Church would likely have considered as “Public Enemy Number 1”. He was a man who dragged Christians out of their homes to beat, imprison, and stone to death. If Saul lived in Tennessee today, he would be on death row (unless of course he could afford a top-notch lawyer and was only convicted of killing black people).

But many Christians venerate Saul, who through an encounter with Jesus on the Road to Damascus, converted to a new way of living and, taking the name Paul, became what many call the “greatest missionary of the Church.” I remain baffled at how we can proclaim the story of Paul and the possibility of grace and redemption for everyone, but then turn to those on “death row” and clarify, “Well, everyone except you…”

Because this is in fact what we are saying when we execute other humans, that they exist beyond the possibility of redemption and transformation. “Sure, ” we might say, “Paul orchestrated the killing of numerous Christians. Yes, King David so objectified and lusted after Bathsheba’s body that he used his power to have her husband Uriah killed so that David could quench his craving. But they are different.” We rightly believe killing is wrong, but then ironically demonstrate that by killing those who have killed to show others that killing is wrong.

I believe we are able to operate under this warped logic for two primary reasons. First, we have bought into the myth of single stories; and second, because we have an un-nuanced and fairly uncritical view of justice.

In an eloquent TED talk titled “The Danger of a Single Story, ” Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells us that single stories are stories that depict only one side to a person or an event. Our media narrates single stories about all kinds of people: Arabs are violent, Muslims are terrorists, immigrants are threatening, poor people are lazy, etc. These single stories produce stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes, Adichie explains, is not that they are necessarily untrue, but rather that they are incomplete. There’s more to the story.

Our criminal justice system, however, thrives off single stories. Our judicial process cares very little (if at all) for the complexity of the accused. We look to assign blame: Did he or she commit the act in question? Are they guilty? Our system is one that often judges people (sometimes forever) for the worst thing they did on the worst day of their lives. Though the theology of Christianity that pervades this state, region, and country is supposedly one of scandalous mercy and forgiveness, we do not extend it in any practical, tangible terms for those convicted of crimes. We have written single stories of these individuals, often in the form of three or four sentence paragraphs in the local news section of our papers, and we accept these reduced narratives as truth. “What more do we need to know?”

I think the first task then, as we consider the values and interests that uphold capital punishment, is to rehumanize our perceptions of those behind the walls. Single stories dehumanize, because they reduce and simplify humans. Human beings are complex; we tend to live in flux, always in a state of becoming. To see the other as human, we must see him or her as complex. We must cultivate a kind of sacred curiosity, an open-minded inquisitiveness that seeks to learn and acknowledge the multiplicity, complexity, and dynamic quality of the other. Creating such a space for storytelling and story-hearing does not guarantee forgiveness, love, or even acceptance of the other, but it carries great potential to foster empathy, that vital exercise where we come to see the world through the other’s particular lenses. It is through empathy that we may find ourselves converted from old prejudices to new ones, ones altered by new faces, new names, new stories, and new relationships.

This has certainly rung true in my experience. Meeting and befriending people in prison transformed them in my mind from constructs of my imagination to companions of conversation, from lifeless black and white ink to life-filled black and white musicians, philosophers, theologians, and comedians.

I had been visiting prison regularly for two years before I ever walked into Unit 2, or “death row, ” at Riverbend here in Nashville. My chest was tight with anxiety. I suppose I expected to see the “monsters” of television dramas and horror films. That’s not what I saw. I met men with whom I shared similar insecurities, fears, beliefs, accents, loves, histories, aspirations. When I served as a volunteer chaplain at Riverbend before being banned from the institution, I often attended a Friday-noon prayer service with death row inmates, where we prayed for the abolition of the death penalty. I believe that when you sit around a table with a group of people, holding hands and praying in common, you can no longer advocate for their murder. I suspect this is why Governor Haslam has not accepted the invitation of men on death row to come pray with them.

Because the reality is, proximity affects ethics. Our conception about what is just changes the closer we are to the offense, whether to the wrong-sufferer or the wrongdoer. If it is our loved one who has been killed, raped, attacked, then our view of justice will likely be more demanding, more final, than if it was our loved one who was facing the jury. I suspect many of us who condone capital punishment might begin to reevaluate our justice paradigm if it was our son, our daughter, our friend or parent who suddenly found him or herself awaiting the jury’s verdict. But everyone on death row belongs to somebody. That is someone’s child.

Related: If It Weren’t for Jesus, I Might be Pro-Death Too

And while the death penalty is a serious and immediate issue that requires address, it is only part of the larger crisis – that of mass incarceration, a systemic disease in this country that results both from our racist heritage and ideologies, as well as our destructive justice paradigm. We understand crime to mean a violation of the state’s laws, and not a violation of human relationships. Thus, we say justice occurs through punishment and pain for breaking the state’s laws, rather than through the collaboration of all affected parties to find a solution that lends itself toward healing and reconciliation.

Perhaps we should ask the question, “Where should justice lead us?” If we want societies of wholeness, health, peace, and security, should we not advocate for a justice that heals and restores, rather than dehumanizes and divides?

We should look for a justice system that liberates rather than enslaves, that seeks to create life rather than destroy it.