“I believe the universe is sort of like an unimaginably vast musical instrument with an infinite number of strings…every human being, every living thing, is a string on that instrument.
The decisions each of us makes and the acts that he commits are like vibrations passing through a guitar string.
Vibrations in one string set up soft, sympathetic vibrations in all the other strings, through the entire body of the instrument.
Sometimes these sympathetic vibrations are very apparent, but a lot of the time, they’re so subtle that you can hear them only if you’re unusually perceptive.
…[the murder of your wife is] a discord [and] can be heard, however faintly, all the way to the farthest end of the universe.
That discord sets up lots of other vibrations, some of which will return to you in ways you might expect – and some in ways you could never see coming. Of the things you couldn’t have seen coming, I am the worst.”
- Detective Vanadium to the murderer Enoch
Koontz D, Out of the Corner of His Eye
She was 14 years of age and beaten to death. An accusation was made of adultery, some say rape, but that is incidental. She was 14 years of age and beaten to death.
While the story captured headlines and caught momentary world attention for its horrific and thoughtlessness, none of it would bring her back. It would soon be forgotten in the moment and life goes on, BUT it would not be momentary nor forgotten in the life of her family – She was 14 years of age and beaten to death.
There is story in the eighth chapter of John of the Bible. A woman is brought to the prophet Christ for his judgment. She was caught in adultery – taken “…in the very act….” The law was clear, adultery was punishable by death…death by stoning, a dreadful way to die. Yet something different happened on this occasion.
Christ was asked by the men who brought her what should be done to this woman. His answer? “He who is without sin, among you, let him first cast a stone…’ The scripture says they were convicted by their conscience and left the scene, the eldest first until they were all gone. Christ asked the woman, “Where are your accusers?” There were none. The hearts of these men were stung, because they all had had adulterous thoughts. They knew, before God, they could not claim innocence from the very act for which they had accused this woman.
The death of this young girl is tragic, but more so in that it is a metaphor for the kind of thing that is done to women and children victimized all over this world. Murder, rape, humiliation of the weak and helpless is the fare of the more predatory and powerful. One expects to find this in war – not in the name of ‘social order,’ ‘religious custom,’ ‘family honor,’ ‘cultural superiority/inferiority,’ or in this case ‘fatwa.’
Fatwa – an edict or religious opinion rendered concerning judgment and/or punishment inflicted in the name of God (what God? whose God?)…or at the very least representing an informal judgment of the ‘Shalish’ – an informal religious court. Of course there is no ‘personal responsibility’ for the punishment and subsequent death of the child…her sentence, after all, was sanctioned. An informal religious court – hmmm. There are far less punitive measure that could have been taken in this matter – and by the way, what about the man, the perpetrator of the vile act that led to this judgment! Reports indicate he was permitted to be disciplined by his family in private and subsequently ran away. You see, she was 14 years of age and beaten to death
Our sensibilities are turned upside down by this kind of event. How can this barbaric act be justified, let alone administered by human beings! Were it only an isolated event, yet one is sickened by any number of atrocities that have been committed and justified for the most singularly selfish of reasons – just because! One need only look to the history of racial discrimination in this country in the 19th and 20th centuries, to note this is not just the act of a 'barbaric' people - we are not guiltless...
There is no way to recompense for the loss of this child in Bangledesh; there is no way to punish the kind of depravity that led to this unspeakable, deliberate act. What punishment could be meted out that would satisfy the sense of revenge or loss filling the hearts of the parents who lost their child?
This, however, isn’t just about this little girl or the millions of others that have suffered degradation and oppression…it is about us, and the thoughts we have in our minds. What things lurk in the darkness of our hearts that are nurtured and fed? How angered and horrified are we, when contaminated thoughts bubble through our own minds? While we are shocked by what ‘…those people did to this child…’ – are we shocked by the violence, avarice, envy and fear of our internal world.
It is clear there is no action we can personally take in this situation. There is something we can do, however. We can work to ensure within the sphere of our influence that we do not murder and kill with our thoughts and language. We can work to ensure justice within the circle of our control.
We cannot change the way others act and behave unless we are present to the deed, but we can make sure when we find ourselves in situations of judgment, we don’t rationalize our actions based on the excuse that it is somebody else’s accountability. We are totally accountable for ourselves for the things over which we have control – as the stoic philosopher Epictitus noted…principally in our own minds and thoughts.
She was only 14 years of age….
- ted
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