Note to the Kirkwood Killer: a Qualified Retraction...

(Note: this is a follow-up to the previous post, "A Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer". If you didn't read that, this won't make much sense. If you did read it, it's probably a good idea for you to read on.)

OK, so it's been a few days, now. The Kirkwood City Council Gun-wielding murderous madman has been the subject of lots of conversation and speculation in the local and national news media. I know quite a bit more now about who the guy was and what his ongoing complaints were. For one, I know his nickname was Cookie. I know I said I'd never remember his name, but a handle like "Cookie" -- especially for a construction worker -- is pretty memorable.

I also know that the Kirkwood city council had been an obsession of Cookie's for several years. I know that he used to run a construction business and parked his equipment on the street, resulting in over a hundred-fifty tickets. I know that he felt uniquely persecuted by those tickets, but apparently not persecuted enough to stop parking his construction equipment on the street. Strange, that, but I'll save that for another blog. I know that he felt it was his duty to make spittle-flying diatribes at any and all council meetings until the council determined that, if they wished to get anything done, they'd have to order him to stay quiet. I know that they considered banning him from the meetings altogether but that the mayor decided against it. I know that the city council forgave all the outstanding tickets-- several thousand dollars worth of fines-- in a conciliatory gesture. I know that, despite this gesture of goodwill, Cookie continued to pursue his legal right to make a vitriolic ruckus during council meetings. I know that his "freedom of speech" case was thrown out of court a few weeks ago. I know now that, bafflingly, his mother and brother apparently believe his vendetta was justified and rational. And maybe most important of all (at least according to the standards of our myopic culture) I now know that Cookie was black.


I didn't know that when I wrote the Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer. It wouldn't have made any difference if I had. Apparently, though, the fact that Cookie was black changes the dynamics of the entire affair for lots of people. I don't understand that. Does morality change a little depending on a person's skin color? Does a crime become more heinous if the perpetrator is white and more justifiable if the perpetrator is black?

That's not a rhetorical question. I'm actually asking that, because the evidence is that loads of people believe that.

Yes, I know a lot more about Cookie now. But I want to put all of that aside for the moment. A good friend asked me if I really meant what I said about Cookie being a "forgettable lump of human debris"? She challenged me to consider that he, too, was a life worth considering. A life worth mourning along with the others. I thank her for asking that. In a less specific way, my wife has been asking me that kind of question for a long time.

Bleah.

I don't want to think about that. I really don't. And I think I know why. It's very simple. What Cookie did was so awful- so surprising and devastating and meaningless- that I want to be able to package it up into a neat, containable box of blame. If I can convince myself and everyone else that Cookie was a horrible, worthless monster, then the tragedy becomes manageable. Why? Because Cookie's dead. He can't spread his stupid, random, murderous insanity around anymore. The world is a safer place. It didn't make sense for a few minutes there, but thankfully the source of the senselessness was killed -- virtually by his own hand, how about that for poetic justice? -- so the world is, once again, a relatively safe place to raise my kids.

But balance demands a less simple answer. I don't want to face it, damn it! But things aren't quite that easy, are they?

I've had this mental picture of what a healthy soul looks like. It's like a ball suspended in space by four strings. Each string is anchored to the four elements of personality: emotion and intellect, belief and knowledge*. In the truly healthy individual, the soul is suspended equidistant between all four polarities. There is, in short, a perfect balance between reason and faith, hope and reality. When an individual exercises one aspect of their personality while neglecting the others, the result is an imbalance that will inevitably lead to error. For instance, the person who values knowledge over belief will forget how to have faith. They will land on atheism and feel all the more superior for having overcome the "irrationality of belief". They will become, in effect, too smart for their own good. On the other hand, the person who immerses in emotion while neglecting reason will find themselves hopelessly gullible, ruled by the vaguaries of their emotions. This person will adopt any belief system, no matter how arcane or preposterous, as long as it makes them feel meaningful and special.

The reason I mention this here is just to illustrate how hard balance is to maintain. When I allow myself to immerse into rage at Cookie and loll in the merciless delight of blame, I am ignoring the alternate fact, as my friend implied, that Cookie is also a casualty in the larger scheme of God's world. God loved Cookie just as much as He loves me. It wasn't true for me to say that no one was Cookie's advocate. God was. God loved Cookie. God doesn't approve of what Cookie did, but neither does He approve of me calling another of His kids a worthless speck of human debris.

Cookie was broken, yes. The human side of me wants to throw that which was broken away, forget about it, despise it. But the spiritual side of me needs to remember that God wants to fix what is broken. He wants to make it better even than it was to begin with. God loves the broken. In fact, I think it's undeniable that His heart is especially inclined towards them, probably because, being their Maker, He knows what they can be. He sees their desperate unhappiness and knows only that He made them for delighted joy, and He wants them to know it.

"But wait!" a part of me warns stridently, "Let's not get all mushy about what God may think of this idiot in the heavenly realm. Of course God loved him. God loved Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer, too, but they had to pay the earthly price for their crimes. Murderers don't get let out of jail just because they find God and get divine forgiveness. It's fine to remember that God loves everybody, but make sure you keep a grip on the human reality that we all have to live in."

And that's just it. Balance. Two worlds that have to fit together, not only out there, where the spiritual rubber meets the earthly road, but here in my own heart and mind and soul. It's hard. Really, really hard. Exhausting.

So to answer my friend's question: no, despite what I said earlier, I can't think that Cookie is a forgettable lump of human debris. I want to, but I can't let that overcome the delicate balance of grace (which in my heart is tenuous at the best of times). God loved Cookie and made him for better. God mourns Cookie's destruction along with the rest. I should, too, or at least try to. Cookie was broken, but not worthless.

I'm still glad he's dead. Not necessarily because he deserved it, but because he is no longer tormented by his brokenness, and no one else will die at the hand of that brokenness. I wish Cookie had been surrounded by people who loved him enough to steer him to balance (as my friend steered me). I wish he'd been loved enough by his mother and brother to be redirected toward healing. It could've happened, and we might have celebrated Cookie's re-emergence into the brotherhood of humanity. He could've been taught how to live. Instead, Cookie was encouraged and propelled to his doom by his own family, who even now seem to live in a black box of bitterness, apparently convinced that Cookie's final rampage of mad hate was justified.

In short, the horror of what cookie did is not simple to explain. Worse, it isn't simple to contain. The seeds of his brokenness are still rooted in his family. The brokenness that destroyed Cookie and his victims is still alive and well. God would see that brokenness healed, and I should make it my mission to pray and work to that end. I hope I remember. Left alone, in a vacuum of lovelessness and bitterness, that brokenness will inevitably result in more horrors. And not just in Kirkwood. Brokenness, by degrees, is universal. It's true all over the world. It's true in my own heart.

In human terms, that's not very reassuring. But in God terms, it's endlessly comforting. Because if God loves even the most broken, even the most dangerously cracked of us, and wants to redeem and delight them with His love, well then His love is bigger and more powerful than I can comprehend. If God's love is that fierce for the most broken, then he loves me that way, too, no matter how cracked and broken I often am.

You know, if I connected with God's undying and fierce love for me more often, I suspect I'd have an easier time remembering His love for guys like Cookie. If I sometimes doubt that God really and completely loves me (and I do), of course I'll find it nearly impossible to extend that love to the worst of villains.

Balance is so damn much work, but I guess that's the work of being human. I owe it to God, and I owe it to myself.

And yeah, I even owe it to Cookie.



* No, intellect and knowledge are not the same thing, and nor are emotion and belief. Intellect is the garden knowledge grows in. Emotion is the seedbed for belief. Developing intellect leads to an increase in knowledge, just as immersion into emotion results in a plethora of beliefs. One may be dependent on the other, but they are distinct and exert their own unique gravity on the soul.

A Note to the Kirkwood City Council Killer

I did the math already. I figured out exactly where my family and I were when the shootings at the Kirkwood council meeting took place tonight. My wife and I had just gotten back from a walk around our section of Kirkwood, about a mile from downtown.

My Sister-in-law had fed our two children- our five-year-old boy and two-year-old Girl- and we chased them around for a few minutes and put them to bed. I finished preparing the potatoes for our dinner while the kids chattered and giggled in their room, hyper from playing with their aunt. My wife and I had a relaxed dinner in the living room and chatted about getting the sagging foundation of our house fixed and the funny things our kids did today. When we were done, I scolded the kids (trying not to smile at the mess they'd made of the bed they share) and told them to quiet down and go to sleep.

My wife commented that the sirens seemed unusual.

Barely a mile away, some guy whose name I didn't yet know had already shot and killed a policemen outside the City Hall. As I tucked my kids in, he was stalking crazily around the council chamber, in full sight of thirty residents, possibly even some kids, possibly even kids not unlike my own, firing at anyone who got in his way and shouting "shoot the mayor!" Apparently he succeeded. According to what we've gleaned from the local news, which is even now still flashing and warbling away in the next room, this random guy killed five people. I am assuming one of them was the mayor. I met the mayor once or twice. He seemed really cool. I liked him. And I don't like people easily. He reminded me of both of my grandfathers. He shook my hand as my wife and I went to vote this past presidential election. And now he's dead, along with four other people.

Apparently, the gunman shot at one of the attendees who was throwing chairs at him to bring him down. Damn, that takes guts. I hope the guy that did that isn't one of the dead ones too, but he probably is. That guy I'd liked to have met. Throwing chairs at a guy who's shooting people to kill is what a man does.

Shooting people because you have a crazy, whacked-out grudge isn't what a man does. That's why I am writing this note to you, that guy with the gun whose name I didn't know a few minutes ago. You know what? Even now I can't remember your name. Why should I? You're dead too, now. But if what the Bible says is true- and I believe it is- then you are out there somewhere, and maybe somehow you will be able to read this. I hope you do, because I want you to understand what I said. I'll repeat it:

Getting a gun and killing people over some stupid grudge isn't what a man does. That's the choice of a weakling, a mongrel, a human cur. Pointing a gun at an unsuspecting person and pulling the trigger doesn't take courage. It's the most cowardly thing a person can do. It's weak. It's a sign of a mind so cracked, either by defect or by will, that it has departed from the brotherhood of humanity.

What you need to know, you whose name I cannot nor will remember, is that those you left alive will not look at your actions and wonder if you were justified. No one will say, "Wow, he was really upset! I wonder what awful thing they did to him to push him so far? I wonder why they deserved to be killed?" No. Nobody is thinking that. No one is your advocate. No one is on your side. No one is thinking what you did was brave. No one sympathizes for you. There will be no plaques to honor you or your silly, stupid, pathetic cause.

In fact, in a way, you are worse than a terrorist. At least a terrorist can claim to kill for a noble cause, even if it is insane and twisted. Why did you kill? We know enough of the why. I heard the word "zoning". I heard that you used to have a construction company here in Kirkwood. I hear that you felt you'd been unfairly treated somehow. I probably don't need to tell you what I am about to say, do I? You probably know it by now. After all, you're dead, and I can only guess that being dead gives one a whole new perspective on these kind of things. But I am going to tell you anyway. Here it is:

No one believes zoning is a good reason to go on a killing rampage in front of innocent people and children. No one.

The world will forget about you, if it hasn't already. But while you are still on the world's mind, you should know that we are not pondering the validity of your complaint. We are just thinking you were a weak, sick, misguided coward who knew, like any monkey does, how to point something and pull a trigger. The world is grieving for those you killed, not you. We are wondering how best to honor the victims. The innocent people who saw you will wish forever that you had not been born. The children who might have seen your stupid, pathetic rampage will be broken, in some small part of their little hearts and minds, until they grow old and die. We will all take a tiny, insignificant bit of solace in knowing that at least you, too, are dead. And we will all wonder, for a short time, how a human being can allow themselves to shrink and shrivel into such a tiny, worthless little speck of cowardly bitterness? How can a person allow themselves to believe that killing the unsuspecting over a stupid grievance is justified? How can a person fool themselves into thinking a gun equals strength?

I'm glad you're dead, you whose name I won't remember. Not because I hate you. You don't deserve an emotion that strong. You were a bug. A bug with a gun. I'm glad you're dead because you were too stupid to know how to live. You were too weak to know how to be a man. You were a cur with rabies. I only wish the first policeman had seen the foam on your lips before you got close enough to do your wimpy, weakling work.

And the rest of you who think pointing a gun means strength, are you watching? Are you seeing how we'll honor the dead, rather than consider what wrong they did to their killer? Are you seeing how we will soon forget the killer but revere his victims? Are you taking notes? I hope you will remember that the person who pulls the trigger on the unsuspecting is known for what he is: a weakling and a coward; a sick, tiny, forgettable lump of human debris. I hope you are watching. It isn't too late to learn how to live. It isn't too late to abandon weakness and learn, at least a little bit, how to be strong.

It is too late for you, though, the gunman lying dead a mile or so away, the guy whose name I already can't remember. You could've learned how to be strong, but you refused.

The guy who threw the chairs at you was strong. I hope he lived. I want to see what courage looks like. After all, I've seen enough of what abject weakness looks like.

(Update: the mayor was not, in fact, killed. He was wounded, but I do not know how badly. The guy who threw chairs at the gun-wielding weakling also survived. Five others were not so fortunate. The gun-wielding weakling is dead, too, but he hardly counts.)