Broken Trust

I have a part two to my "Incredibly Shrinking God" post, but today I'm reflecting some more on a most disturbing event.

On Sunday, my beloved picked me up from St. John's and when we got home, we discovered that someone had tried to break into our house by smashing the glass out of one of our window panes.   This occurred sometime in the morning when many in the neighborhood were either asleep, at church, or otherwise out-and-about.  Luckily, the fact that our window was painted shut seemed to foil whoever this was and they gave up.

It was such a weird juxtaposition.  The day before, I had been out with a group of my fellow citizens helping to pick up garbage off the streets of one of our crime-ridden sections of town which is only a mile-and-a-half from my house.  The people in the neighborhood watched us as we scoured overgrown roadways and bushes for the beer bottles, empty plastic containers, condom packages, and tons and tons of cigarette butts.  They would ask us what we were doing.  We'd tell them we were helping to pick up their neighborhood.  Some would sigh and say, "Well, it's gonna get trashed again in another ten minutes."  And our group would say, "Then we'll come back and pick it up again."   The point was to give people in this community the sense that somebody sees that they're suffering from neglect, and is stepping in to help.  And I don't doubt that the leaders of this particular coalition will be marshaling the troops again to help this neighborhood.

And then the next day--smash--a rock through our window.

St. Paul's letter to the Romans from this past Sunday ends on the line, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."   A good lesson to bear in mind as a grapple with my feelings of broken trust in our human family.  My suspicion is that this was done by a teenager.  A professional wouldn't have given up so easily.  I do hope that whoever did this will one day get caught trying to do it again.  And I hope that rather than put them into the meat grinder of our justice system, they be made to face who they have hurt with their actions.  I think facing the one injured is more likely to result in the heaping of burning coals upon the head.  And that's where I'm at with all of this.