Honor Life

My housemate, Diana, is serving her YAV year at a grass roots nonprofit. The agency is called Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP). Today was the 4th annual student conference, in which she played a significant role in putting it all together. All of the Cabana girls decided it was important to support her in this role, so we all ventured to Middle Tennessee State University (about a 35 minute drive) this morning.

I went not knowing what to expect of the conference's information or my own feelings. I see a lot of the world in gray, not really having a strong pull to one side of an issue or the other. But the stories I heard and the information I learned hasn't yet settled within me.

I learned that although Lady Justice is suppose to be blindfolded, she seems to be able to see economic status, race, and geographical location. I heard testimonies of victim's family members who shared that they sought revenge whole heartily until they realized (through and for whatever reasons) that forgiveness was a better choice. I saw anguish, compassion, frustration, and a whole slew of emotions. I heard a man who had been on "the row" for 20+ years, and was the first exonerated man in the state of Tennessee. I heard the death penalty and abortion compared as equal murders.

Through it all, my thought was: "Yes, right now I choose life. . . but if it was my sister/mother/father etc. who was murdered? Could/would I still feel that way?" I don't have an answer. Yes, I agree that it is not a good system legally, and it is not my position, morally, to take a life in any means. And while I know I've set my stake in the camp that honors life, the camp that chooses mercy over vengeance, I still can't stop churning this issue over in my heart--thinking of all the people who had to pick a side of this issue for a reason much different than a morning student conference.