Measured Justice

This piece is called “Measured Justice: a [inaudible] chaotic financial, political, and social time.”

It’s becoming quite clear that justice and revenge are perfectly compatible. Justice has, over centuries, been doled out by many hands spanning hundreds of mediums. Justice has just as widely denied to the poor, downtrodden, and outright innocent along the way.

Our government has laid out a plan for it that’s been revised countless times on every level until most of us are confused as to how it should be consistently and equally distributed from race to race, class to class, and generation and generation. I believe in justice, have had mine denied and then wiped clean off the mat, where only faith kept my mind and actions from seeking the dark side.

Instead, I was bolstered with the self-control and desire to not make matters worse every time. That awareness is present now, and as I battled for understanding, acceptance, and building back up from square one, it stays present. I know that when you seek revenge on someone who’s done you wrong through one or a series of good deeds, you get it.

Not only by being on the right side of the law, but by also denying the naysayers, their opportunity to puff up in the “I told you so” righteousness. Good work can not be denied or ignored. Actively setting these setting new examples which force others to have a revised opinion is the most powerful way of getting on the other side of allowing hurt, fear, loss of trust, and/or anger control you.

Not all justice is fair or positive, just as all revenge doesn’t have to be negative and harmful. In fact, if we, as a people, the human race, accept them both to be equally important, to understand and respect, we can also accept that the hand of justice can and will positively soften the grip of revenge and live less fearful, definitive lives inside and outside on all sides.

So when you’ve been kicked down flights of progress, beaten away from physical and emotional freedom, and stabbed with the knife of long-reaching pain, you have to decide what actions to take. Do you seek relief through revenge or do you rise, rise above what has happened above what’s expected of you in terms of feelings and actions, above the norm.

The decision will be hard fought for many and require one to rethink life for today and tomorrow, personally, familially, and socially. And that decision will come as long as you believe in compatible opposites, elevated accountability, and redemption. Quite often, at the end of the day, all any of us have is our word and that frames our character. So it’s imperative to stay aware, be clear, and act like a human being because that’s justice measured accurately.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.