Last night I had the great privilege of attending my daughter's high school fall play. She is stage manager this year, instead of actress, and has found the job to be both more difficult and more rewarding. It is frustrating that if she does her job well, no one notices, and that is, in and of itself, the compliment. But if things go badly, everyone will notice, and that responsibility will come right back on her.
The happy outcome last night, if that is the correct term to ascribe to it, was that the play went fantastically well. It was a tremendous presentation of a very thought provoking and difficult topic, and the final curtain call resulted in an immediate standing ovation, led, not by the proud parents, but by classmates who entered expecting to have a little fun, but instead got challenged and prodded in their own beliefs. The play they are presenting this year is "Dead Man Walking," and I will admit, it wasn't what I expected when I walked in the door.
[A disclosure is required here. I never saw the movie that starred Susan Sarandon. The death penalty is not something I like to think about, and I feared the movie would sermonize and try to unfairly sway my opinion on a subject I would rather ignore. So I don't know whether the movie has an agenda or not. But this post has nothing to do with the movie, it is entirely about a production at my daughter's high school, and my comments are strictly limited to that presentation.]
The death penalty is, for some, a clear cut issue. I have heard people on both sides of this issue make proclamations of its rightness or wrongness as though there is no murky middle ground, no point of confusion, no religious or moral imperative involved.
I find, for myself, it is simply not that easy. I cannot put aside my own penchant for seeing the pesky gray areas of life, allowing me to come down squarely on one side or the other. Instead, I am caught in the middle between the two extremes, one foot in each camp, in a sort of split decision that doesn't make sense even to me.
I try, in all things, to fairly examine an issue from all sides before I take any position on a subject. I want to see things from that frame of reference, try to understand why people feel, or think, or believe, what they do.
I do not enjoy debating with people who have different opinions from those I myself espouse. Generally, I fail to hold up my end of the discussion, because I often find that I am in sympathy with their views, even when I have a different conclusion, unless they are so entrenched in their own extreme agenda as to be completely unreasonable and incapable of considering there is any other way of thinking. I am not much on fanatics of any variety - in fact, I believe those who polarize an issue reduce the possibility of resolution, because they cannot accept any outcome other than their own solution.
For me, the death penalty is filled with difficult issues on both sides, and that is why this play was so thought provoking. Although it is the story of Sister Helen Prejean, who among other things has counseled death row inmates prior to their execution and has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, it was, at least in this presentation, not a hammer with which we are beaten on the subject. Instead, it was a precis of the two sides, which leaves you to make your own decision about what is right, and what is just. And whether or not anyone can be justified through it.
The actress who played Sister Prejean is an accomplished performer, and took us inside the torment and confusion she felt as she battled within herself. We saw her struggling to reconcile her belief in the sanctity of human life, even if that life was in the form of a convicted murderer, with her sympathy for, and understanding of, the families who were victimized by his willful actions. The anger and rage, on all sides, were presented fairly, not in equal measure, but as they are. It was clear where the sympathy was intended to be directed, and it was not with the criminal.
The play also shows the victimization of a family often forgotten, that family who will be bereaved by the execution itself. It was clear where the responsibility lay at all times - Sister Prejean never allowed him to excuse himself for the injuries he had inflicted on everyone involved.
You saw the mother of the murderer questioning where she went wrong, and how she could have raised someone so depraved as to perpetrate this crime. But she also recalled him as a child, and grieved and mourned for what had gone wrong. While the criminal received no sympathy at all, you could not fail to be moved over the grief and sadness that his family experienced because of his actions.
You saw the family of the murdered boy falling apart as they struggled to come to terms with this horrific event that had happened to them. Their family was rent asunder, not once, but twice, by the violent actions of someone for whom they had no sympathy, toward whom they felt only fully understandable rage.
You saw the family of the murdered girl, violated by the existence of the criminal as they recalled their daughter's final moments of life, harboring their own hatred. It was evident that they were pinning their future on the elimination of the one who had brought death to their door. You could only hope that in the end, they found the solace they were seeking, even as you suspected it would not. The hurt that he had inflicted could not be assuaged by his death, I don't think, because their loss would remain, unresolved.
You heard the story in the words of the criminal himself, changing as time passes and he approaches his own end, the fear of what lay beyond this life finally, ultimately, forcing him to acknowledge for the first time his wrongs and his grievous part in his own demise. His ultimate statement to the families he has deprived has exactly the impact you would expect - too little, too late, and suspiciously self-serving.
But the deeper issue it stirred up for me is the question that transcends the basic questions that usually accompany the death penalty - who are we, as human beings, to play God? What about grace and reconciliation? What about the salvation of the convicted?
If we believe God loves us all, then we must, by extension, believe God loves even the least of us, the scum of society, those for whom we reserve nothing but disgust. If there is always the possibility that God can enter a heart and soul and change that person, if salvation is available unto death, then is it right to hasten that death, and possibly deprive someone of the opportunity for repentance and reconciliation?
Just as troubling for me, I think, is the suspicion that the execution does not, in the end, bring resolution, peace, acceptance or even a sense of justice to those who have already been victimized. I don't know, because I have, thankfully, never had to face that particular trial. But I think it is a question worth asking those who have traveled that road. I think we should, at the very least, determine whether, in the end, it is the execution which allows them to move forward, freed at least from the haunting loss. Or if, in fact, they would have been better served by the knowledge that the one who victimized them was forced to live for the rest of their life in a cell, giving them opportunity to reflect on their crime, and what they have done.
As I said, I have no answers. I do not feel guilt over the execution of a Tim McVeigh. He went unrepentant to his death, and he does not, in my opinion, deserve to breathe the air and share the earth of the people he victimized. But I cannot, in the end, say I would be willing to be the one to make it happen, to make the injection, to end a life, to be responsible for carrying out what the law says is the just conclusion, either. It is too much responsibility for me, and I would feel that I had usurped God's plan.
At the same time, perhaps it is fulfillment of God's plan for their life to end thusly, and in experiencing that final penalty, the life has ended exactly as God knew it must. In the end, perhaps it is that very application which is required to bring a hardened human being to a place where he or she must open their heart and allow God to enter, or to finally reject, once and for all, the salvation that awaits them if only they will accept.
In the end, I am still where I started, with one foot in each camp. But perhaps, in the end, that is where we should be. I think that is the higher calling of arts in the school - to make us think, to provoke, to educate and to force us to confront those things with which we are uncomfortable. In that, this high school presentation fulfilled it's mission.
And so, I send my daughter bouquets of good wishes, wrapped up in hugs, and a kiss for luck. You are a success, not only at stage managing, but artistically, because your presentation, your vision, has done what good art always does - it has made me think beyond the moment.
There is no greater accolade I can give.
