A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.
But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.
He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.
"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"
Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.
"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.
Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.
"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"
"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"
"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.
Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.
The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.
When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."
Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."
Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."
From a report from March 28, 2008, National Public Radio
Listen to the story here
A Father's Story
Julie Welch, a recent Marquette University graduate gifted in foreign languages served as a translator for the Social Security Administration at the Alfred E. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995 she attended morning Mass before heading for work. At 9:02 AM, she greeted her first clients. Then a bomb reduced the building to rubble. She, along with 167 others, was killed that day.
After Julie's death, her father Bud Welch, turned to drinking and smoking to ease the pain of her loss. Every day, Mr. Welch paced the chain-linked fence that ran along the perimeter of the bombing site.
Mr. Welch had always opposed the death penalty but he noted acquaintances would say, "if it ever happens to you, you will change your mind." When it happened to him, he did change his mind. He recalls, "the first month or so after the bombing, after Terry Nichols and Tim McVeigh were arrested and charged, I didn't even want trials for either of them, I wanted them fried."
And then one morning he was standing under an elm tree at the site of the destruction, watching mourners walk along the fence. His head was hurting from drinking the night before, but he began probing his mind with three questions: "Do you need trials to begin now? Do you need convictions? Do you need executions?"
Reflecting on this last question, he remembered a conversation he had with Julie during a road-trip home from Marquette. A news report on the radio announced that the state of Texas had carried out an execution the previous night. Julie had turned to her father and said, "Dad, that makes me sick what they are doing down in Texas. All they are doing is teaching hate to their children and it has no social redeeming value." Recalling this statement, Mr. Welch was immediately struck, realizing that it would be wrong to execute Nichols and McVeigh. He said, "the day that we might kill either one of them would be a day of vengeance and rage, and vengeance and rage is exactly why Julie and 167 others are dead." In his mind, then, the question was answered. No, he did not want executions.
Shortly thereafter Mr. Welch stopped drinking. He became an eloquent spokesman against the death penalty. Through his speaking engagements, he derives great comfort in sharing stories about Julie's life, her compassion, her contributions.
One speaking engagement brought him to Buffalo, New York, near the area where Timothy McVeigh grew up and where his father and sister still lived. Mr. Welch recalled one evening, watching the news, and a reporter attempted to interview Mr. McVeigh. Mr. McVeigh avoided the reporter's questions and only once looked at the camera. Mr. Welch saw an undeniable grief in Mr. McVeigh's eyes. He recognized that grief because he was living it. At that moment Mr. Welch knew he wanted to meet Mr. McVeigh.
The meeting between Mr. Welch and Mr. McVeigh was awkward. But they found common ground as Catholics of Irish descent. The two talked in the McVeigh kitchen. Jennifer McVeigh, Timothy McVeigh's sister, joined them. Mr. Welch caught himself glancing very self-consciously, above the table at an 8"x10" high school photo of Timothy McVeigh. Finally he said, "God, what a good-looking kid." A tear rolled down Mr. McVeigh's face.
At the end of the meeting Mr. Welch offered his hand to Mr. McVeigh and to Jennifer. Jennifer hugged him and began sobbing. Mr. Welch looked at her and said, "Honey, look, the three of us are in this for the rest of our lives. We can make the most of it if we choose. I don't want your brother to die and I will do everything I can to prevent it."
Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 11, 2001. Mr. Welch condemned the execution. Today, he regularly keeps in touch with Mr. McVeigh.
A Mother's Story
Brian Muha had just completed his freshman year at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio. He was bright, athletic, and faithful - an all-American kid. At the end of the semester he returned home, but the stay was brief because he planned to attend summer classes at Franciscan. Before returning to school, he arranged to send roses to his mother. Mrs. Muha received them the day after he left and called to thank him. He wasn't home. Later that afternoon, the police informed the Muha family that Brian and his friend Aaron were missing. A search team began looking for the boys. After nearly a week, the bloodied bodies of Brian and Aaron were found on a hill under a canopy of wild roses. Three suspects were arrested.
During that week when Brian's status went from 'missing' to murdered, Mrs. Muha relied on prayer. Her prayer was the Lord's Prayer. And she prayed it deliberately, reflectively, asking herself, challenging herself, "Can I pray this? What is this forgiveness that God wants?"
She forgave his killers. Even after she learned that the three men decided to murder her son for the 'thrill' of it and later bragged about it. Even after she learned that Brian was kidnapped, beaten with a gun, and forced to march up a hill to his death. Even after she learned that he was tormented and killed 'execution-style.' Even after she had to relive those horrific details while attending two trials. And even though the murderers were and remain unrepentant.
"To forgive someone," she says, "does not mean to excuse them. It doesn't mean that you are saying that what they did is okay. ... It doesn't mean that you understand, or that they had good reason for their actions. It doesn't mean you are saying they shouldn't be punished. It means giving up anger, hatred, revenge, and bitterness towards someone who has hurt you. It means to have good will, to want what is best for that person and to help them get it. What is ultimately best for everyone is Heaven. Do what you can for those who have hurt you so that they can get to Heaven."
Mrs. Muha prays unceasingly for the conversion of her son's killers. She calls them her brothers. "They are my brothers and yours," she says, "because we are all children of the same Heavenly Father."
Mrs. Muha has gone further than praying for these men. She has advocated for them. She specifically requested that they not be executed although one was sentenced to death. And she speaks against the death penalty: "There is only one reason not to use the death penalty and I think that reason will prevail in the end. The reason is that each one of us was created. That means we belong to Someone - with a capital S - and that Someone has rights over our lives."
Mrs. Muha emphasizes that by rejecting the death penalty, she does not reject justice or punishment. Rather, by rejecting the death penalty, she embraces life. "We need to be radical witnesses for life," she says, "including very guilty life so that we can turn the tide toward a culture of life."
And she has provided just that sort of radical witness, honoring life, not with a call for vengeance, but with charitable deeds and hope. Mrs. Muha founded a scholarship in Brian's memory. The funds are available to inner-city youth from Pittsburgh, Steubenville and Columbus (Ohio), because Brian was from Columbus and the men who killed him are from Pittsburgh and Steubenville. She has also established a foundation to help fund various projects for inner-city youth. She purchased the home from which Brian and Aaron were kidnapped and converted it into an apartment for clergy and religious who cannot afford housing while studying at Franciscan. She asks those who stay there to pray for the men who killed Brian and Aaron.
Mrs. Muha's son Chris also embraced forgiveness for his brother's murderers. At the sentencing phase of the trial, Chris offered his forgiveness to the murderers in these poignant, faith-filled words: "I offer my forgiveness to you. I forgive you, not because you had a rough childhood, for that is not an excuse. I forgive you, not because you were depressed, because that is not an excuse. I forgive you because I have been forgiven."
A Radical Forgiveness
After the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, a commission was established to bring the violence of apartheid to light and to give both victims and perpetrators a chance to be heard.
The Commission brought an elderly black woman face to face with the man, a Mr. Van de Broek, who had confessed to the murders of both her only son and her husband.
The elderly black woman stood in an emotionally charged courtroom, listening to white police officers acknowledge the atrocities they had perpetrated in the name of apartheid.
Officer Van de Broek acknowledged his responsibility in the death of her son. Along with others, he had shot her 18-year-old son at point-blank range. He and the others partied while they burned his body, turning it over and over on the fire until it was reduced to ashes.
Eight years later, Van de Broek and others arrived to seize her husband. A few hours later, shortly after midnight, Van de Broek came to fetch the woman. He took her to a woodpile where her husband lay bound. She was forced to watch as they poured gasoline over his body and ignited the flames that consumed his body. The last words she heard her husband say were "Forgive them."
Now, Van de Broek stood before her awaiting judgment. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission asked her what she wanted.
The old woman replied:
"I want three things," she said calmly. "I want Mr. Van de Broek to take me to the place where they burned my husband's body. I would like to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial."
"Second, Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. I want, secondly, therefore, for Mr. Van de Broek to become my son. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him."
"Third, I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him, too. I would kindly ask someone to lead me to where he is seated, so I can take Mr. Van de Broek in my arms, embrace him and let him know that he is truly forgiven."
The assistants came to help the old black woman across the courtroom. Mr. Van de Broek, overwhelmed by what he had just heard, fainted. And as he did, those in the courtroom---friends, family, neighbors, all victims of decades of oppression and injustice---began to sing "Amazing Grace." Gradually everyone joined in.
Harvey, A. (2009) The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism, New York: Hay House, Inc.
Prevallet, E. (2005) Toward a Spirituality for Global Justice: A Call to Kinship. Sowers Books and Videos.
