On Grace for Monsters

I wasn’t going to write about this.  I have a list of other topics I planned to write about during my naptime writing session.  Updating you on my failed Lenten practice or a light, breezy post regarding our upcoming move and how I am the worst at packing topped the list.  But since Tuesday morning this topic has consumed my thoughts, refusing to leave, hanging around the corners of my mind, never far, always finding its way in to the forefront.  I think maybe it’s something I need to work out.  I’m still undecided on whether I will click the publish button on this or keep it filed away in my drafts pile.

My hometown has been rocked with a scandal this week.  A high school teacher has been arrested and accused of having an almost year long affair with a student.   He, reportedly, admits to it all.  This isn’t the first time such a scandal has hit my town.  It is the first time a teacher so beloved has breeched this trust and committed this kind of sin.  Shocked, stunned, angry and sad don’t even begin to cover the reactions to this story.

For me, as a former student of the high school where this all took place, this is much more personal than just some teacher from my alma mater that I vaguely remember turning out to be a creepy predator.  I knew this man as both a student and an adult.  He was one of my favorite coaches of an activity very near and dear to my heart that I participated in as a student.  He was still coaching when I returned years later to coach the team myself.  Ironically, the night before the scandal broke, perhaps at the very same time he was being arrested, I came across an old photo of this coach and set it aside to send to him with a sweet “remember when/thanks for being great” note.  On that night, before I knew what I know, I would have called him a friend, said he was someone I knew well, someone I adored, respected, enjoyed and thought highly of.  As a freshman he pulled me into the heart of the team, which allowed me to find my place in an activity that forever changed me.  As a fellow coach I saw him change the course of students’ lives.  He was one of those coaches who kids wanted to be around.  His classroom was a safe haven for the dorks, nerds, jocks and achievers alike.  I can name a number of students who would count his influence upon them as life changing. 

And now, I don’t really know what to do with all this.  As a parent and youth worker I hold a special, significant amount of rage for perpetrators of this crime: preying on the innocence of children and teens.  I have spent most of my life writing off those guilty of this particular sin.  It is reprehensible.  My stomach turns in disgust upon seeing the mug shots of men, these monsters, who have slept with students in their classrooms or youth groups.  I am swift and final with my judgment: they deserve all the years behind bars and more, they should never work again, I hope they lose everything.  For those guilty of this crime I want to take away any and all happiness now and forever.  But now the face in the mug shot is familiar.  The monster has a name and a distinct laugh that, should you say or do something to elicit it, makes you feel like a million bucks.  For me, the man in that picture carries with him dozens of happy memories.

Because he is (was?) so beloved I think people are having a hard time knowing how to react to this news.  Some have turned to blaming the victim- she should have known better, she is partially to blame.  This is wrong.  She is a sixteen-year-old victim.  He is an adult who knows better.

I’m finding my own reaction hard to process.  What do I do with what I thought of him before?  Does this negate any good he has ever done?  Does it wipe clean the record of countless kids whose lives were positively impacted by him?  Should it?  And yet what he did is so, so wrong.  Inexcusable.  Horrifying.  Just plain awful.

What do you do when you know not to excuse the crime and not to blame the victim, but find yourself feeling less disgusted than you think you should and more grieved?  My usual reaction of rage seems dormant.  Instead all I feel is grief.  Grief for his wife and daughter.  Grief for all the students who called him a mentor and must now navigate the confusing emotions of seeing a hero fall from grace.  Grief for his victim, a sixteen-year-old girl who will carry this with her for the rest of her life.  These emotions are not surprising though.  I expect to feel this grief. 

What I do not expect is to feel tremendous amount of grief for him.

I feel sadness for him, for the past that is now tarnished and the future he threw away.  I am finding myself worried about him and his bleak, empty future.  I keep thinking about my friend alone in jail having the darkest night of the soul.  Does he despair his choice, these actions?  He must.  I can imagine him there, wrestling his demons, defeated and alone.  And I feel sad for him.  And then I feel guilty for feeling sad.   Shouldn’t this be the least of his punishments?  Shouldn’t he get everything coming and more?  Doesn’t he deserve to see the end of any happiness now and forever?  Isn’t he now a monster after all?

What does grace look like in this?  How does the God of grace respond?

I’m finding my grief for him to be a surprising key to grace in all of this.  I usually imagine God as angry, annoyed and short- tempered with regards to my sin.  I often assume my wrong doings cause him to write me off, knock me down a few ladder rungs that I will have to earn my way back up.  I assume his judgment is swift and final (much like mine for the nameless monsters in mug shots).

But grief for me, the sinner?  It’s not an emotion I would connect to God’s response to sin.  Does God grieve my sin?  Does he grieve the consequences of my actions, the future I may throw away with a bad choice?  Does he feel sorrow over the ways I have hurt myself with my sin?  I expect God to feel sad for my victims, for the people my sin hurts.  I don’t expect him to feel sorrow for me, for how my sin hurts me.

What if God responds to my sin with grace that sometimes looks like grief?  What if grace is sometimes sorrow and sadness for the sinner too and not just his victims?  I think I am encountering another facet of grace in my emotions following this scandal.  Part of my graceful response towards my friend who did a very foolish, painful, awful thing is to allow myself to feel sadness for him.  He is not undeserving of my grief.  I must let this emotion wash away the judgment and anger and disgust.  And I must remember it when I am presented with a mug shot that is unfamiliar so that I can grieve for that sinner too.  And grieve for the fallen world and the consequences of our actions. 

I must let grace look like grief today and remember that just as I am never outside the grips of grace, neither is anyone else.