Revenge Vampires

A few years ago we decided to buy a little house in Oxford, Mississippi. With my parents dead, it made sense for us to have a place where we could be close to family. It is an idyllic place. Regularly featured on numerous “Top 10 Places to Retire,” Oxford has it all: great food, incredible arts scene, football, and a lovely community. People have been nothing but kind to us when we are there.

Which is why, when the recent bad weather hit and people got wild on the internet, it was all a little jarring. I’m in a Facebook group for people who live in Oxford. Generally speaking, it has been a sweet corner of the internet where I could find a babysitter recommendation or hear about an upcoming event. But as soon as the temperatures dropped, so did everyone’s ability to assume the best.

People would post about trying to get to their jobs in the storm and be met with harsh judgement for anyone leaving the house. People who were hoping that the grocery store was finally open in a thread would be lambasted for not stockpiling enough food. You know, real neighborly interactions.

A friend of mine from Minnesota once told me that actually getting outside when it’s cold is really the best way to deal with it. You can keep some of your sanity and perhaps remember that the world is a lot bigger than your opinions — especially when you are sitting in your house with family members that you have a fluctuating amount of love for. Otherwise, it really is just you and your condemnation of yourself. Until you push it off into the comments section.

So how did yet one more decent space on the internet become a word fight? Well, it turns out we are pretty eager to kill each other.

Another act of violence surfaced in my newsfeed this week that I cannot look away from. Kenneth Smith was the first person in the country to be executed with nitrogen gas. This method was supposed to be more efficient and painless. But based on eye witness accounts it sounds appalling. Smith struggled for several moments of shaking and writhing before dying.

He was interviewed a week before and said, “Everybody is telling me that I’m going to suffer. Well, I’m absolutely terrified.”

It all sounded so horrid that I voiced to my husband that maybe there’s an old way the government did this that would be better. But every suggestion I made to him was met with a reason it will not work. It was bleak to say the least:

“Firing squad?”

“People always avoid the target.”

Finally, we came to the idea of the guillotine. Knowing little about French history, I’m sure that this was not without problems. But at least if it worked, it was fast. You can just chop someone’s head off and move on with things. It’s visceral and efficient. What more could you ask for?

To those hell bent on retribution, the only option is to demand death, right?

There is a poem I read recently that haunts me. It was written about the woman in the Gospel of John who was caught in adultery. There she is, standing in front of her accusers waiting to be stoned to death. But Jesus comes in and drops the charges. It is the very portrait of mercy. It is what the world would look like if the internet took a breather or if executions were brought to a screeching halt. This brilliance comes from Marie Howe:

Teacher, they said to Jesus, the law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say? –John 8:5

You know how it is when your speeding car spins on the ice at night

and you think here it is?

When the deer spring across the headlights?

When you begin to slip down the steep and icy steps?

Now imagine someone is about to punish you, someone you know

And then they don’t.

The call for retributive violence is met with the mighty, mighty mercy of Jesus.

Don’t we all desperately need mercy? Mercy for the ones who demand vengeance. Mercy for the ones who are quick to turn in on themselves and hurt others. Mercy for the condemners trying desperately not to be the condemned. Mercy for us too.

The family of Kenneth Smith’s victim had long ago forgiven him. They certainly were not asking for him to die. And I am sure they did not want him to be a test case for a new execution method.

We are revenge vampires though, aren’t we? Most of us do not have to face issues around extreme violence and execution. But we face it everyday in our encounters with all of the other keyboard wielding children of God. Killing Kenneth Smith did not make anyone feel better. It was not enough. Violence and anger never are.