Why punishment?

I dont know how you feel about the word punish and the concept of punishment?  Do you feel making another person suffer will teach then not to do wrong again?  Is that solution worth it?  What of the person who made a mistake but has now learned and will grow through it?  Do we punish them or support them as well to find the kind of forgiveness in their hearts that others who are angry cannot give to them?   And what of the unrepentant sinner who refuses to admit he or she hurt someone and sees no harm or is just too hard to care or thought the person needed to ‘be taught a lesson’?

These are tough questions and I guess we all have different answers.  For me as a person who knows how human I am and how much I can err at times but has a good heart anyway and doesn’t like to see others suffer I would come out on the lenient side.  And the reason I am thinking about all of this today is because on Thursday night cricketer Steve Smith was urged to give a public apology for tampering with the ball during a match against South Africa, he received a years suspension from cricket here in Australian and there has been ongoing commentary and analysis about it in the media here over the past few days.

Is interesting to me that this is all occuring during Mercury retrograde in Aries.  Mars rules sport and in one show I watched they spoke of how the ball had a backward spin on it.  I could not help but think about Mercury which also rules our perception and the sense we make of different things seeing them from all kinds of different perspectives.  In Aries Mercury would not operate like this but may jump to a quick conclusion based on gut instinct.   Mercury being retrograde also shows underhanded actions that they naively thought would be obscured from view but where actually visible to the media.  I don’t know why Steve Smith chose to do this along with his team mates.  Was his transgression promoted by a sport that is now so obsessively loved to the point where winning and achieiving a result dominates everything and must be achieved at any cost?  Did he feel warranted to use a little trick (Mercury is the trickster of the zodiac) to make things harder for the other side?  What of the fact of competition and personal desire (Mars) as opposed to consideration for justice and fairness and the care of others (all Libran issues) which rules the sign opposite to Aries where the full moon of this weekend falls?

My heart went out to a very upset and contrite Steve Smith on Thursday night as he stumbled his way through the apology with his Dad’s hand on his shoulder.  Discussing it with my sister we felt sorry for him.  We weren’t excusing the fact that he ‘did the wrong thing’ we both just didn’t want him to suffer too much, but wasn’t that suffering necessary for him to know he had a lesson to learn?  However was what some see as  a harsh and deeply punitive lesson from the cricket board some kind of crucifixion for Steve?   Was he the scapegoat that some wanted to be seen exiled to the wilderness of isolation and barring from the game he said he loves with all of his heart? What of his other team mates?

Questions and more questions, followers to which I don’t have the answers only my own perspectives and ideas.   The following thought has been coming into my mind so often over past days “to err is human, to forgive divine” certainly there seens to be something expansive and light filled about the capacity to open up our heart and loosen the hold of angst that someone else’s difficult actions have caused.  When the person is repentant that quality of mercy that ‘falleth like rain” can bring moisture and new life to barren places.  The dryness and hardness and contraction of an unforgiving heart can cause us as much pain as the person who caused us the original injury.  And yet some injuries seem so difficult for us to forgive.

Most certainly not all things seem healthy to forgive, abuse of children, sexual perversion, torture and killing on the basis of ideals, (including those of so called ‘divine’ justice).    For some that kind of response or unforgiveness, vengenace, revenge or punishment is a justified reaction to wrong doing or pain.  An eye for an eye, but as someone said once “an eye for an eye just means the world ends up blind”.

This issue is something trauma specialist Peter Levine addresses in his book Waking The Tiger : Healing Trauma in the chapter Blueprint for Repetition in which he gives two examples and responses of someone who just marginally avoids a traumatic collision when a car approaches from the wrong side of the road.  In the first example the victim is able to discharge the trauma by centring in his body, self calming and then being embraced by his family, in the second the victim gets angry with the other driver and pursues retribution, following the car down and shattering its windscreen only then to go through shame and guilt as well as suffering judgement from others.   The drive to resolve or repeat a trauma can be implicit to trauma because in the end trauma requires a discharge, for the person who does something wrong that ‘discharge’ involves suffering to awareness to right the difficult behaviour and address the transgression and either self forgiveness or ongoing self blame which may see them saddled with long term anxiety, depression or even suicial feelings.

People’s willingness to show and express forgiveness may be, in this case the only key to release a remorseful sufferer or victim from their prision.  Only empathy and insight into the forces that may have caused someone to purposely or unconsciously traumatise others out of their own injuries, wound or blindness may provide the key to release us from our own ongoing prison of resentment, disturbance or blane which held deep inside us at an unconscious level can only end up posioning our own bodies and keep us trapped in a disturbing inner cycles of damaging chemical reactions.

There is much more to say on this issue about how we can discharge and release ourselves and others from past trauma or injury and I am only just learning myself so for now I will end this and ask for any comments feedback or insights others may wish to share.   How did you come to forgive? Did you ever suffer from lack of self forgiveness?  Was there a time you felt retribution for the perpetrator or a desire for them to suffer also was justified?