One night many years ago, an employee of my extended Alabama family came home to find his wife in bed with another man. This is a very old story in human history, but it was a new one to Dale, who summarily killed the usurper. Needless to say, the friends of the other man were not happy about his death. They went hunting for Dale, determined to take vengeance.
Dale found a hiding spot under the big old house that was our family home place. My great aunt Missie (who was in charge of pretty much everything, including the nether regions of the house) knew he was there, as presumably did my grandmother and the other adults in the family, but all ignored the fact until the friends had given up looking, and Dale could be transported safely to jail.
In the years following, my grandmother sang a new lullaby as she rocked my little brother. The lyrics were simple and, repeated, had a certain lulling effect:
Dale, Dale,
Get out of jail,
And take me to ride on the tractor.
Violent Acts and Stealing the Liquor
The South has probably had more than its share of violence, some of it racially motivated, much of it not. It has affected people of all social classes. Besides Dale, among my family’s acquaintances were a judge killed by a member of his own family and a university professor who shot his wife. There was also the state senator whose murderer made the mistake of stealing not only his victim’s car, but his whiskey to boot. He was apprehended weaving from side to side down the highway.
Although violent acts are often the stuff of legend, and occasionally of lullabies, it remains true that violence is rarely if ever justified. This is so whether it is a question of individual retribution, the emotional abuse family members can inflict on each other, or the mass destruction of war. Violence begets violence, as it did in days gone by and as it continues to do in our country and the world today.
Direct and Indirect Consequences
Violence begets violence directly, as it did when Dale took revenge for an act of infidelity (itself a violent act), and then when the friends sought to avenge that death.
Violence also begets violence indirectly:
• by teaching children that might makes right and the powerless are fair game;
• by fostering a climate where laboring for justice does not seem worth the effort, because violence is so much easier;
• by nurturing a culture where the extraordinary courage required to be a peacemaker is renamed cowardice.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full
of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.(Isaiah 11:9)