{"id":1171,"date":"2016-09-09T15:46:35","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T19:46:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/?p=1171"},"modified":"2016-09-09T15:49:21","modified_gmt":"2016-09-09T19:49:21","slug":"damaged-icon-revisiting-brock-turner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/steelmagnificat\/2016\/09\/damaged-icon-revisiting-brock-turner\/","title":{"rendered":"Damaged Icon: Revisiting Brock Turner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\u0411\u043e\u0433\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0434\u0438\u0446\u0430_\u0422\u0440\u043e\u0435\u0440\u0443\u0447\u0438\u0446\u0430_\u0432\u043e_\u041b\u0435\u0441\u043d\u043e\u0432\u043e\"<\/p>\n

(Severely damaged icon of the Theotokos, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Somehow, I missed the news that Brock Turner was from Ohio.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know until this week that he was moving back to Ohio. A news site showed me the sex offender registry with his name and address, and I clicked on it without thinking. It was a town I\u2019ve been to, but not right here, thankfully. There are already enough rapists in the Steel Valley. There are a couple in my neighborhood, down on the next block where the street lights are burnt out. My own rapist lives a few towns over, in Martin\u2019s Ferry, with a family and children.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0googled the address. I don\u2019t know why I did that\u2013 morbid curiosity always gets the better of me.\u00a0I clicked the satellite image and squinted at the blurry photo of a roof. It\u2019s just an ordinary\u00a0upper-class McMansion, one of many, on a spastic squiggle of a street in the middle of a wealthy suburban development. The kind of place where people can have every\u00a0luxury they want, unless what they want isn\u2019t kitsch. True luxury that isn\u2019t kitsch is reserved for the richer still, the astonishingly wealthy whose sons would not go to trial at all for rape\u2013 not for the Suburban-McMansion Rich whose sons serve three months if the press is bad enough.<\/p>\n

I watched the video of Brock going into the police station, to register as a sex offender. His mother was there, if anything more shocking\u00a0than he. I\u2019ve gotten used to Brock\u2019s face. His grinning portrait and sullen\u00a0mug shot leer at me every time I read the news, lately; his hateful pampered countenance has become the stock\u00a0image for every statement about how lenient our justice system is toward athletes who rape, and justly so. The story of what he did, his lack of remorse and the light sentence he received ought to be infamous; we should all know that face and that name. But I\u2019d never seen his mother before.<\/p>\n

There she was, not dressed like I\u2019d imagine a rich woman dressing to go the police station. I\u2019d envisioned a tasteful-looking rich woman in a pastel skirt set with a strand of pearls.\u00a0This woman\u00a0was\u00a0wearing jeans\u2013 fashionably tailored expensive jeans, no doubt\u2013 and that ubiquitous loose-knit white Mom Cardigan. Every mother in America must have a white cardigan like that one. you can get them at any thrift store, though I\u2019m sure she bought hers new.<\/p>\n

What did\u00a0she do with the cardigan? She used it to block news cameras. She held\u00a0up both sides of it like bleached bat wings, covering as much of the camera as she could, and failing pretty badly\u00a0at it. I found myself on the verge of laughter at how terribly she managed. She looked as though she were calmly flashing her monster of a son, spurring him on to more sexually perverted acts right in the middle of the police station. And her effort was useless in any case; we all know her son\u2019s face, and now we know what she looks like. She is, like him, without remorse; like him, she\u2019s rich, pampered, kitschy and lacking even the most frivolous aesthetic benefits of wealth. They are a textbook, living illustration of the banality of evil\u2013 the\u00a0drab, mealy, boring and oafish\u00a0ordinariness of evil. And they\u2019ve gotten away with it.<\/p>\n

I wish I hadn\u2019t watched that video.<\/p>\n

I wish I didn\u2019t know that these people lived in my state.<\/p>\n

I wish I didn\u2019t know they lived, at all; I wish I\u2019d never heard the name of Brock Turner.<\/p>\n

What am I supposed to do with this knowledge?<\/p>\n

What does the Christian do, when we know that people like this exist?<\/p>\n

I can\u00a0see Christ in my own family and friends. That\u2019s easy enough. I have learned, poorly, to see Him in beggars and in strange people who act oddly in church. I feel like I\u2019m getting the hang of these lessons, though I\u2019m sure I am infinitely deficient and may God have mercy on me. I know that it\u2019s my duty, as a Christian, to honor the presence of Christ in every human being. How do I honor a human being of this variety? Where do I begin?<\/p>\n

Where is Christ in this pampered,\u00a0coddled, violent young man? Where is the Deity hidden in a spoiled brat\u00a0who raped a woman so hard she bled, and then laughed when he was caught?\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Where is Christ in his enabling mother? Can I even call her a mother? Should this person who held up her frumpy cardigan sweater to further insulate her rapist spawn, share the same title as the Theotokos who stood helpless and permitted her Son to be voluntarily sacrificed for the sins of His wicked flock? Are they both mothers? Are Brock Turner and Christ both sons?\u00a0How is the Turner family in their kitschy McMansion called a family, just as Saint Joseph, his chaste wife and foster-Son are called a family? What do I do when the image of Christ is so fragmented by wickedness that all I see is blasphemy?<\/p>\n

I am called to love all, to value all, to wish the good for all, to have mercy on all.<\/p>\n

How?<\/p>\n

Lord, when did I see You?<\/p>\n

Every time I see a human being, I know I see a ciborium where You wait, hidden in darkness, to commune with me. Why did You remain hidden in a vessel like that?<\/p>\n

What do You want me to do?<\/p>\n

When You were sold, You loved the one who sold you. When You were tortured, You loved the ones who tortured you. When they handed You over to the Romans, You loved them and the Romans as well. You loved and forgave them as they nailed you to the tree. And You are God the Lord, incapable of error or injustice. If You love something, You can only love it because it is lovable. If it is lovable, it is just that it be loved. It is an injustice not to love it.<\/p>\n

I want to be just, as You are just. What should I love, in the temple which has voluntarily desecrated itself? What should I love, in the icon that shrieks blasphemy? What should I love, in the body which bears Your image but does what You have forbidden?<\/p>\n

And why should I?<\/p>\n

Just because he is\u00a0a human being?<\/p>\n

Does the bare fact that someone was created a human, make that person worthy of love? Not the spoiling, myopic, counterfeit love that flashes the wings of a cardigan, but real unadulterated Love that brings with it justice and mercy both? Love that would gladly hand Himself over to be crucified and descend into the depths of Hell, if there was a chance, even in theory, that the beloved might be healed?<\/p>\n

As far as I can tell, it does.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of those things I have to take on faith, because I can\u2019t see it. But according to my faith, it does.<\/p>\n

If we are Christians, we have to reverence every icon that comes across our path. Even the icons who have voluntarily rubbed off as much of the Image as they can, leaving themselves as bleak and ugly as a rich suburban mother in a white cardigan flashing her rapist son.<\/p>\n

This is a hard saying, and most days I can\u2019t accept it. I don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

But the One who sees more clearly than I, commands it, so I accept. In obedience, and in reparation for my sins and the times I have marred my own icon, I accept.<\/p>\n

Lord, have mercy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Severely damaged icon of the Theotokos, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Somehow, I missed the news that Brock Turner was from Ohio. I didn\u2019t know until this week that he was moving back to Ohio. A news site showed me the sex offender registry with his name and address, and I clicked on it without thinking. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2694,"featured_media":1172,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[865,728,626,485,628,754,550,330,486,482,896,285],"tags":[1394,1392,362,1389,582,1387,169,1393,1386,197,151,352,1388,1384,150,1391,1385,1390],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abuse","category-christ","category-christian-idenitity","category-conscience","category-conversion","category-dirty","category-icon","category-mercy","category-rape-sexuality","category-sex","category-social-justice","category-whole-life","tag-banality-of-evil","tag-brat","tag-brock-turner","tag-cardigan","tag-family","tag-house","tag-icon","tag-impulsive","tag-mcmansion","tag-mother","tag-ohio","tag-rape","tag-rich","tag-sex-offender-registry","tag-sin","tag-spoiled","tag-suburb","tag-white-cardigan"],"yoast_head":"\nDamaged Icon: Revisiting Brock Turner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(Severely damaged icon of the Theotokos, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Somehow, I missed the news that Brock Turner was from Ohio. 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