‘Give them what they deserve!’ How loaded a statement is that? Can you repeat those five words in your mind and not conjure up some negative association, whether feelings or imagery.
In the late 1990’s, the then Home Secretary suggested that if one were to release to the general public details of crimes committed, a common cry for many of them would be ‘lock them up and throw away the key.’ However, if one were to share the background details of the convicted person’s life, perhaps including aspects of physical, mental and sexual abuse as a child, broken homes and relationships, or poor living conditions, then the response changes to one of, ‘that poor person. How dreadful! What can be done to help them?’
So what do they deserve?
Some time ago on this blog site, the question was asked as to what our prisons are for? Perhaps the following statements offer an indication.
“Mercy: It is giving people more than they deserve whereas justice is giving people what they deserve. It is the quality of the heart. It is a willingness to forgive when there has been hurt.”
If you are to accept this, it would suggest that the role of the Courts is to give those who have committed a crime an appropriate punishment; to match the severity of the crime with the punishment i.e. to give them ‘what they deserve.’ Perhaps one of the ‘approaches’ those who work with offenders can offer is to give people more than they deserve, in other words to work with the quality of mercy.
What might that look like? The following poetic expression from Anthea Church's book, Inner Beauty , captures it in a very beautiful, uplifting and refreshing manner.
Mercy is the quality that sees behind expression to the need that is inside it; behind the anger to the sadness; behind the coldness to the fear. Mercy goes behind and meets the hidden needs of a person’s mind, their child-self.
To have mercy is to know the vulnerability that is in you and feed it with what you are learning, so that it strengthens and becomes level with your adulthood and calmness. Mercy is to know that, though it often asks for what is visible and material, the mind's needs are deeper and more demanding and cannot be met by anything false or short term.
Mercy is the wisdom to see that a failing mind needs a system in which to meet its needs. Real mercy is not therefore merely softness or compassion but a spiritual system, whose clear footsteps hold God's presence and so, when followed, become a meeting point with Him. That meeting is itself the most valuable present a human mind can receive. In it lies a training for the senses; a training to draw them inwards so that alone from influence, the mind can regain its strength and learn what is unique to it - as though, in a moment of quiet victory, it receives its own inheritance.
When a mind finds its strength again, it develops the confidence lo re-enter the world and be alive and gifted in it. Mercy is to keep the strictness until the last moment and to help others do the same, so that they no longer bank their lives on temporary attractions but move towards the hidden beauty that is in them.
This is why it is wrong to blame someone when they hurt you, for blame sees only what is outside and not what lies behind it. Mercy is to think, do and speak only what leads inwards to where the real reasons lie.
I wonder then, if the doorway to forgiveness is mercy.
