Minister’s Musings September 2018
I’ve been in Gainesville for exactly one month now, and I’d like to say thank you for making me feel welcome! There have been a few adjustments to my new life in Gainesville; the humidity and heat have been challenging, and I miss my 95-year old mother who lived with me for four years while I was in Chattanooga. I’m the youngest of four children and I’ve always said that I’m her favorite, but I think it’s just that we are so compatible. We had a deal; I did the cooking and she did the dishes. She loves my cooking. Mom is now living in a lovely independent living apartment near my older son in Anderson, SC. She seems happy and my son and his wife are spoiling her, but it’s been an adjustment for both of us.
When I first moved to Ludington, MI to serve my first church, Mom followed me from South Carolina a year later. She had a cute little apartment on the sixth floor with a view of Lake Michigan from her balcony. Ludington is a resort town that has less than 9,000 residents from September to May when the population swells to over 30,000. This is great for local business, but it changes things radically or the locals. I felt serious “Mall withdrawal” with Ludington’s limited retail offerings, but I soon adapted which meant that I rarely went to Grand Rapids, Traverse City, or Muskegon without running a few errands and doing a little shopping, necessary or not 🙂
One September, a few years ago, I took my mother with me because she needed to do a little personal shopping, too. Besides, there was a huge sale at Younkers! On our way out of town I had to make a couple of pastoral visits in Ludington, but Mom said she didn’t mind going along. It was the first time that I had taken her with me on pastoral visits, and I have to say that it turned out brilliantly! My mother is about the sweetest little old lady you’d ever want to meet; gracious, poised, kind and compassionate, everything you could ask for in a grandma. She even baked banana bread and cookies. It occurred to me after leaving the hospital that my mother is a “therapy-grandmother!” I could take her with me every time I visited sick people, maybe even rent her out, you know, like they do with therapy dogs and cats. My mother was a goldmine!
There was a cute little boy, around eight years old, at Younkers who stopped to show Mom his new school shoes and belt. She was sitting in the shoe department waiting for me to finish up my shopping when he walked right up to her and said, “Do you want to see my new belt?” He whipped out his shiny new black belt with such enthusiasm that it flew out of his hand. He had just rescued his new belt and was just getting ready to pull out his new shoes when I appeared. “Do you want to see my new shoes?” I said, “Sure!” and he proudly held up the left shoe. “Wow! Great shoes!” I said. “Do you want to see the other one?” he said. My heart melted, and I looked adoringly at his other new shoe.
That little boy was drawn to my mother like a dog on a bone. She’s priceless! I can see it now! The classified ad would read: Therapy Grandmother for Rent; lovely white hair, great smile, bakes cookies, doesn’t eat much, never complains, great with children and pets. As it turns out therapy dogs and cats aren’t for rent, they work for the all the smiles and hugs they get. They are a gift, just like my mother and that cute little boy who made me smile. And she has taught me that no matter how tough life gets, we can always choose to be kinder, more compassionate, and grateful.
In faith and love,
Cathy
A M O T H E R ‘ S S T O R Y
Cathy Harrington
“I cannot wipe away your tears…I can only teach you how to make them holy”,
From Affirmation by Anthony De Mello.
My life changed forever the night I received the call that my beautiful daughter and her roommate had been brutally murdered on November 1 2004. A shroud of darkness fell over me in heavy layers suffocating me with fear and despair. It was inconceivable that the vibrant, shining essence that for twenty-six years had been Leslie Ann Mazzara, the light of my life, my flesh, my blood, my youngest child, could be gone, extinguished forever. Her beautiful and promising life was stolen in the night in an act of terror, in a gruesome act of selfish anger and rage. I was thrust on a journey through hell seemingly without end, and began a mother’s mission to make meaning out of the meaningless.
The next eleven months were an unspeakable nightmare as the police investigation following false assumptions that Leslie was the murderer’s target failed to find the killer. I fumbled through each day in a broken-hearted daze, confused and unconvinced that anyone would want to hurt Leslie. When Eric Copple, a friend of her roommate, Adrienne, turned himself in after the police revealed that the killer smoked a rare blend of Camel cigarettes, we were all stunned. I hadn’t realized that I had been holding my breath all that time and that every muscle in my body had been braced for that moment until I received that long-awaited call in the middle of the night. I gasped for air like a victim of a near-drowning accident. We had been held in trauma space for almost a year, while this man, this murderer, married Adrienne’s best friend, and had gone about his life as if nothing had happened. Stunned by the news, I braced myself for the next steps of the journey.
The many months that followed were filled with speculation about Eric Copple and about whether the prosecution would seek the death penalty. The District Attorney assured us that it would be his decision ultimately and after they did a full review of the case and a psychological profile on Eric, they would ask the families for their views before making that decision. We were told to be patient, to wait.
Meanwhile the media rushed in to exploit and sensationalize our tragedy. The American entertainment industry has developed an unsavory taste for violence and vulgarity. When murder is turned into entertainment, the sacred gift of life is diminished and our minds and hearts become calcified, our humanity suffers.
I sought counsel with anyone who might help me preserve Leslie’s dignity and save us from the potential pain and suffering of a lengthy and very public trial. Sister Helen Prejean generously offered to speak with me and her words of wisdom nourished me with hope. Sister Helen told me heart-wrenching stories about mothers of murderers that opened my mind and my heart to compassion. She pierced my darkness when she said, “Jesus asks us to stretch, Cathy. There are two arms of the cross; one side is for the victims and their loved ones and the other side of the cross holds in the same light of love and hope, the murderer and his family.” For the first time I felt a measure of compassion for Eric’s mother, and I could feel my heart open, suddenly aware that it had been clenched tightly like a fist. Looking back I must have been thinking that a broken heart had to be bound tightly like a tourniquet.
There has been a gradual adjustment since then as my eyes have slowly adapted to the dark. My Universalist faith teaches that ultimately all will be reconciled with God and that everyone is saved, even murderers. When I think of Eric as a child wounded by abuse, I feel sadness, a too common history shared by those who grow up to commit violent acts against each others. Remarkably, Jesus was capable of forgiving his murderers as he suffered on the cross. As a Unitarian Universalist Christian minister, I seek to follow the teachings and the example of Jesus, but forgiving the murderer of my daughter and for the loss of my never-to-be-born grandchildren; babies that my arms ache to hold, still seems inconceivable to me.
But, even in the worst that life has to offer I’ve discovered that grace is present. Grace is everywhere, Georges Bernanos’ country priest said on his death bed, borrowing his dying words from St. Therese of Liseaux. It must be true, because I found that when I reached towards the heavens from the hollow emptiness of my sorrow, I found grace. Grace was there waiting for me, quenching my sorrow, a trusted companion on the lonely journey.
Will, a homeless friend that I met along the way gave me his grandmother’s Benedictine cross to remind me of God’s love when I told him about Leslie’s murder. Moved by his compassion and selfless generosity, the theology of the cross took on new meaning for me and at Sister Helen’s suggestion, I developed a relationship with Mary as a peer. After all, her son was murdered, and Mary spent the rest of her life making meaning. I carried that cross in my pocket for over two years and often found my fingers tracing the lines of the two arms as if praying in Braille. My life became a living prayer; there are two arms to the cross. Jesus asks us to stretch….
“Have you ever heard of a pinhole camera?” retired astronomer, Dr. Ed Dennison asked when I mentioned to him that Sister Helen had poked a tiny hole in my darkness. He demonstrated it to me by covering the window in his laundry room with foil and poking a tiny hole in the foil. We huddled in the darkness and waited. Impatiently, I squirmed in the dark stuffy, room as my eyes slowly adjusted. I thought five minutes was surely enough, but Dr. Dennison told us that it takes a full thirty minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark. After ten minutes, he held up a white paper to the beam of light coming in through the tiny hole and we were astounded to see the trees from outside outlined on the paper. Gradually, we could see the details of the leaves and as we waited they became more intricate and clear. I was amazed at how I was sure that I could see clearly in a few minutes and how much more clarity there was in fifteen, and even more in twenty and twenty-five minutes. The trees were upside down, and though I haven’t found a metaphor to properly explain that phenomenon, I had no problem understanding the metaphor of the pinhole camera and my journey toward forgiveness parting my sea of despair and hopelessness one step at a time. I may never arrive, but it is the goal of forgiveness that I have set my compass. I believe it is our true north as Jesus demonstrated on the cross, the destiny of human potential that some have called becoming fully human or perhaps this is the kingdom of God that Jesus understood so clearly. Forgiveness is not a destination, it is a journey I have come to understand.
Which brings me to my understanding of the death penalty and what I believe to be the multi-layered hidden tragedy beneath the conviction that the death penalty is “just” punishment, I don’t have time to build a case for the multitude of reasons that the death penalty is impractical economically, unjust, racist, and so on. I can best speak to my own experience and to the insights that I have gained over the past four and one half years of finding my way in the dark. I likened it to four and one half minutes in the pinhole camera experiment. I am just beginning to see. If we had been forced to endure a trial and remain defended and held in trauma, there would have been no beam of light to penetrate and relieve the oppressive darkness – nothing to illumine my path. The death penalty not only serves to keep us in the dark stagnating hope; it serves to compound the violence and escalates the conflict, limiting our human potential to find our true north. I don’t yet have a glimpse of what forgiving the murderer of my precious child would be like, but I know that if I don’t walk towards that hope, I will be doomed to dwell in despair and pain forever. It is about choosing life, again and again, day after day.
The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke suggests that we think of God as a direction. I hold that in my heart as I put one step in front of the other and as I slowly move toward clarity, I begin to think about the possibility of meeting Eric Copple face to face; a stipulation written into the plea agreement for a facilitated victim/offender dialogue. If Sister Helen is right about the two arms of the cross, and I believe she is, then Eric can also find his way towards wholeness. But, it is Eric’s responsibility to take fully into his heart the reality of what he has done and let the guilt tear and rip apart his heart from the inside out, as his senseless and violent act resulting in the murders of Leslie and Adrienne have done to all who loved them and whose lives they touched. It is only then that healing will be possible for Eric. I pray it will be so.
I would say that what might be the most insidious tragedy of the death penalty is that if we wilfully murder murderers, how can we ever hope to become fully human, to complete the journey? Honestly, I’m terrified of facing the murderer of my child one day, and I don’t know if I will have the courage and the grace to ever forgive but it is my hope and prayer. All I can do is keep on walking in that direction and leave the rest up to the grace that I have come to know and trust.
Cathy Harrington is a parish minister in the Unitarian Universalist faith. Her daughter Leslie Ann Mazzara was murdered on November 1, 2004 at her home in Napa, California. Cathy negotiated a life sentence for her daughter’s murderer who had, until that point, been facing the death penalty.
~Published in No Human Way to Kill by Robert Priseman (Seabrook Press, 2010)
Sister Helen Prejean, C.S.J. says “In ‘No Human Way to Kill’, Robert Priseman has brought together different voices to create an important and compelling new overview of the death penalty as it exists in the world today.” Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve says “No Human Way to Kill presents a graphic account of the death penalty. The etchings and accounts offer up a strange and original contemplation on a subject which stretches back far, far too long. It is time for the death penalty to end; this book helps us to see why.” ‘No Human Way to Kill’ by internationally acclaimed artist Robert Priseman creates a unique account of the death penalty by juxtaposing an interview with former Texas Warden Jim Willett who oversaw 89 executions, an essay about life on death row in San Quentin by former Crips gang member Anthony Ross, and an essay from Cathy Harrington whose daughter was murdered; Cathy negotiated a life sentence for her daughter’s murderer when he had been facing a potential death sentence. This beautiful and compulsive book also features etchings by Robert Priseman.
Rev. Dr. Cathy Harrington 