Something Sobering

As you, faithful reader, have no doubt observed in reading these ravings, the people of Kenyan have so impressed me with their kindness, hospitality and warmth. This morning however gave a glimpse of another side of life here, something best left to the shadows. Heading into town this morning we encountered a crowd of maybe 40 people standing in half the road. As we passed, there in the street was the body of a man, and folks were tossing green stems from nearby plants over his face. I thought it was a traffic accident because of the obvious trauma on the body and given the chaos that are the roads here, with Mac trucks and speeding vans and cattle and bicycles and pedestrians all sharing the same ten foot wide strip of asphalt, not a big surprise. But I was wrong. It seems this man stole a bag of fertilizer, .... , and encountered what is called here "mob justice." In short, he was confronted -- and blow by blow -- was beaten to death....A life for a bag of fertilizer....

I couldn't help but recall that when the Older Testament counsels an eye for an eye, it wasn't promoting revenge. In those days, like these days in Kenya, small crimes were often met with extraordinarily harsh punishment. An eye for an eye was intended to impose proportionality into the justice system. Proportionality that it seems my Kenyan friends may wish to consider as well...May this departed man, and all the dead, move from glory to glory in the nearer presence of God. RIP.