As I write, it is 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep.
I can’t sleep because right now I am in my nice warm home while someone else is asleep under a tarp on a street or in a parking lot or under an overpass within no more than a mile or two of me.
I can’t sleep because just 20 minutes away, hundreds of people are sleeping in cement cells because we have decided as a civilized nation that one’s debt to society for bad acts is paid through punishment rather than reconciliation.
I can’t sleep because somewhere near me, a black woman sleeps alone while her husband is sitting in one of those cement cells because we also decided to fight a war on drugs by locking up all addicts, but mostly black and brown addicts.
It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep because somewhere nearby a grocery store clerk is appreciative that she is finally recognized as an essential worker, but is still contemplating an abortion because she can’t feed her two kids and pay rent on her $12-an-hour wage. Meanwhile, Utah legislators propose bills to make her watch a video about the procedure in the hope that that will be enough to overcome the desperate circumstances that are leading her to think her only option is abortion.
I can’t sleep because the people who claim to represent me in the state legislature are again passing laws that promote gun ownership and punish poverty rather than seeking the common good and a culture of life.
So instead of sleeping, I write and pray with the fervent hope that one day we might stop seeking easy solutions for complex problems and start building a truly peaceful and prosperous nation.
I pray that one day soon we will spend more money on affordable housing and begin to recognize that rising tides can’t lift boats with holes in the bottom.
I pray we will discover that locking people up in violent and inhumane conditions does far less to protect public safety than practices that encourage people who are incarcerated to develop empathy for victims and seek reconciliation with the entire community harmed by their criminal activity.
I pray we likewise will discover that the war on drugs has succeeded only in decimating black and brown families without touching the outrageously lucrative drug trade. By labeling black and brown addicts felons, the war managed to subject a whole class of people to permanent second-class citizenship, and I pray we will recognize this injustice and dismantle the barriers that keep people who have committed non-violent felonies from being full participants in our nation.
I pray our legislators on both the state and federal level will also recognize that we cannot eliminate abortion through laws alone. Unless and until we address the root causes that lead women to demand such violent procedures, women in poverty or experiencing domestic violence or struggling mentally or physically will continue to find ways to terminate their pregnancies.
I pray that legislators will likewise abandon their infatuation with all things firearm and capture the vision of a state in which people feel safe without carrying deadly weapons on their person.
And I will do more than pray. I will recognize, as St. Therese said, that God has no hands but mine, and will rise a little later this morning to put my prayers into action, with the grace of God.
Jean Hill, director of the Diocese of Salt Lake City Office of Life, Justice and Peace, can be reached at jean.hill@dioslc.org.
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