I asked Pastor Jim Langley of Cedar Rapids, Iowa if I could post his latest from Facebook. Pastor Jim is from my hometown of Windom, Minnesota, he hits another homerun for God with these words…….
I am angry today. It’s nothing new, sometimes I feel like the Hulk’s Bruce Banner whose secret is he’s “always angry.” Or maybe I’m just becoming the grumpy old man yelling at the kids to “stay off my lawn!” Whatever the case, I was taught that the best way to deal with anger is to vent it…to channel it into something productive. So, I write…usually sermons, sometimes journal entries, once in a while facebook rants (like this one). Although this rant might be a little longer than normal…
I am angry today. Angry that a young woman, a child of God, was brutally, callously, raped behind a dumpster. Her humanity taken from her for what has been called “20 minutes of action”.
I am angry today. Angry that a young man, a child of God, would see nothing wrong with raping a young woman behind a dumpster (or anywhere else, for that matter). Throwing away his humanity for that “20 minutes of action”.
I am angry today. Angry that anyone could look at rape and say it was just “20 minutes of action”. Angry that a father could forget his own humanity and see his son as the victim, rather than the girl his son raped. Angry that a father could so easily talk about the pain and suffering his son has gone through without even acknowledging the pain and suffering his son’s victim has gone through.
I am angry today that the pain and suffering of the victim will have an impact on the rest of her life. Angry that this pain and suffering won’t go away when the media attention dies down…or when the next big news story draws our attention away from it.
I am angry today. Angry that there are those who look at a tragedy like this and blame a culture that promotes promiscuity and drunkenness, rather than placing the blame where it belongs…on the one who committed the crime.
I am angry today. Angry that we live in a world where we can so easily devalue human life, where we can so quickly blame the victim for being in the wrong place at the wrong time…or drinking too much to remember what happened…or wearing the wrong clothes.
I am angry today. Angry that a system designed to uphold justice and do the right thing could be so easily swayed to care more for the rapist’s life than the victim’s. Angry that this is often what passes for justice in our society. Angry that had the color of the perpetrator’s skin or their socio-economic condition been different so, too, might the sentence.
I am angry today. Angry that when I wake up tomorrow I will probably hear another story (and probably more than one) about someone who has been raped… murdered… brutalized… dehumanized… made to suffer over and over and over. I am angry today…and I know there are others who feel the same. My prayer is that the anger doesn’t go away, but instead becomes a resolve to make this world a different place, to work for healing and wholeness and justice and peace. People keep saying things have to change…maybe that change can begin today…
