So I am, going to change the names up in this blog. For those of you who know who this pertains to, keep praying for the families involved. For those of you who don't, pray for the families involved. The family does not need any more media attention; therefore names have been changed as to not draw media attention to what is already a situation that has too much attention. Thanks- Edwin
Grace and I went and saw Wicked last week. I know, cool. We did the lottery thing. You show up a couple of hours early and put your name in a glass tub then hope they pull your name. If they do then you only pay $25 per ticket. We got in and had horrible seats. But quickly got up and moved to dead center orchestra row N. We had great seats.
If you have not seen this wonderful prequel to the Wizard of Oz I highly recommend it. I am going to give some of the play away here, so don't keep reading if you don't want to know what happens. In the story based on Gregory Maguire's novel is the back-story of the Wicked Witch of the West. Her name is Elphaba. She is born green and because she is green she is despised and treated as other, shunned and bullied. While in school, Elphaba learns of the powers that be; the Wizard of Oz plans to oppress the talking animals including her favorite professor who happens to be a goat. Elphaba resists the oppressive Oz and by doing so, becomes an even more maligned and vilified person by the powerful spin of the wizard. During her time in school Elphaba meets Galinda/Glinda the Good Witch. Glinda ends up working for Oz and turns on her friend Elphaba because Glinda craves popularity.
The thing about Wicked is that all of my life the world of Oz had seemed pretty simple. The Wicked Witch of the West was bad, Glinda was good, Oz was self-serving, but ok in the end, and the monkeys were really bad. What the play and book do is take those notions of good and evil and question them to the core. A "what if" is created, a "time to walk in another person's shoes" is made. We find out that although the Wicked Witch of the West appears wicked she is indeed good, and the good witch, Glinda, is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
It was no coincidence that the week I saw Wicked is the week we got the bad news about Tony. Tony is a kid who is a part of our community and who last week allegedly killed another man. The details were horrific. Tony's foster parents and all of us who heard the news were stunned and shocked. As I saw the news all last week and saw Tony's picture on the TV and heard the victim's father interviewed, I was in tears for Tony, the victim, the victim's family, Tony's family both biological and foster, and our church who helped raise Tony.
I thought about what strangers would think who heard the story. A black kid from foster care murders a white kid with special needs. The victim is the victim and the perpetrator is evil. Pretty simple. But like the play Wicked, there is so much more to this story.
First we do not know what happened. We only know what the media reports and what witnesses state they saw; that is not what happened but what the media concludes what happened. We do know that a young man was killed, that is horrible. We do know that Tony is suspected of doing it and that the officer on the scene shot Tony four times.
That is all the facts that we know. Until we know more, we continue to pray for the victim's family and all those affected by this event.
What really got me thinking was how many other events occur that I have judged to be evil or bad with no real evidence to support it. I have no idea what is going on to lead up to the event, I don't know the real story and may never know it.
Maybe, just maybe that is why Jesus calls us to be very hesitant to judge another person. He basically states that to the standard we judge others, we will be judged. I know I would appreciate it if anyone is thinking about judging me, that they would get my side of the story first. Most of us don't take the time to find out what the back-story is. Instead we would much rather live in a world where we can point our finger to them and say, "they are evil, they are wicked."
That is until the finger is pointed at us, at one of our own.
Maybe this can be one thing that God "works for the good" out of this bad situation, that we no longer draw conclusions until we have the full story. Most of the time, when we get the whole story, we will realize that there are very few evil people in this world. There are many bad decisions made, but not that many bad people.
Pray
Peace
Edwin
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