She was convicted of murder when she was 18. She’s been in prison for almost 30 years but this past week was taken for execution but with two attempts, she did not die but rather was raced to the hospital so her life could be saved. On every front tragedy underscores this story.

The law, by the way has changed so that if she was accused of murder today she would not face the death penalty for what she did at 18.

So now what? She is shackled to the bed and in hand cuffs – not enough suffering and torture for her I guess.

And so the lawyers are talking about a life sentence. She’s served almost 30 years and was just tortured. Sounds like she’s paid her debt. In many cases in her country, people do worse things and are walking the streets within 25 years, at times even 15 years.

Meantime another trial – for the murder of her three children. A hung jury, and the question of doubt jeopardy. Can she be retried for the same crime?

Again, more tragedy on all fronts.

I’m certainly in favour of justice, but it seems to me that at times justice is warped.

Israel has killed thousands of children and women in Gaza. The USA too has killed women and children in Iran. And closer to home….the Canadian government’s policy of residential schools led to the death of hundreds of indigenous children. But governments are rarely held in prison, and almost never led to a gas chamber.

What is the balance in this matter?

And now the American Secretary of Defense has announced that the upcoming capital punishment of a soldier convicted of murder will be killed by firing squad and it will be livestreamed as a public execution. The only two public executions in the past year were done in Iran and by the Taliban. That’s the kind of company our southern neighbour now keeps.

Canada abolished the practice of capital punishment in 1963 and abolished the death penalty for civil crimes in 1976. All remaining references to capital punishment were removed in 1998. The taking of a life requires someone to do the actual killing – we sometimes miss that. And the idea that the state is imposing a penalty is lost in the exchange for the individuals involved.

Thou shalt not murder may sound to simplistic, but I do not think that the taking of another life is easily justified.

May God help us to see in each other the image of God, and may the peace of Christ rule in our lives.