Hosive

a week ago, john allen muhammad was executed in virginia. he was known outside of the dc area as the shooter who randomly shot and killed people over a three week period in 2002. for those of us who were living in this area, this was a new experience, a new definition of terrorism. 9/11 was only a year removed yet this was even more fearful. people were afraid to do anything outside: shop, get something to eat, pump gas, walk around….you could be shot.

and the places where the victims were gunned down: wheaton, rockville, silver spring, kensington, manassas, fredricksburg, falls church, aspen hill….these were not places named on the news to me….these were places i was familiar with and went to. one victim was shot outside a restaurant i ate at weekly. another at a gas station i had used before. another at the local big box store. it was too real.

cynically and with a tinge of survival mentality, we would not get gas if we did not have to since gas stations became an easy, favorite target for the shooter. but as soon as we heard of a shooting, we would rush to pump gas because we figured he was done for a few days. it was an awful way to live.

we went to china to visit rob and julie toward the tail end of the ordeal and i had two hopes: that the us would not start another war while we were overseas and they would catch the killer so we could come back to a restored, safe community. both hopes were realized.

having been through that situation, terrorized and brutalized by this man, i have been thinking about his execution. in theory, i believe there is room for the death penalty but in practice because innocents are executed in the process, i am generally against the death penalty believing that life in prison is sufficient justice. but what to do with john allen muhammad?

i was stunned to hear this reaction from one of the victim’s family members. someone who was even more affected…much more affected. i had been asking my congregation if anyone still thinks the sermon on the mount is viable and a few days later read this:

Bob Meyers, whose 53-year-old brother, Dean, was shot dead while pumping gas in Virginia, called Tuesday’s execution surreal.

“Watching the life be sapped out of somebody intentionally was very different and an experience I’d never had,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

“I’d watched my mother die of natural causes, but that was very different.”

He said he might have attained some closure, “but I would say that pretty much was overcome just by the sadness that the whole situation generates in my heart. That he would get to the place where he did what he did, and that it had to come to this.”

Meyers said he had forgiven Muhammad for two reasons: “One is that God calls for me to do that in the Bible and the second thing is related to that. If I don’t, it rots me from the inside out. It doesn’t really hurt John Muhammad or anybody that I have bitterness against.”

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wow. humbled. yet still unsure about how i would have voted.