When I was guest master for a short time from late 1990 to early 1992 I had some interesting experiences with different types of visitors. The vast majorities were of course no problem, from different religious traditions and here seeking quiet and a time to reflect….or simply sleep.
One early Monday morning, a man walked into our retreat house with a gun and showed it to me and Jackie, who worked in the office here. I did not know what to do, so I just treated him like everything was normal. Now I knew the man, he would come in for a chat about once a month at different times. He had a severe alcohol addiction problem and was tormented about that. I know that his wife left him because he came in one day weeping over this fact, telling me what he did to her. All I could say was that it was good that she left since he was a danger to her. That seemed to calm him down and he left. So here he was again, with a gun.
So I asked him what he wanted. I hope it was not him wanting me dead. He looked at the ground for a bit and then said. “I want to kill myself”. He continued: “I was sitting on your property with the gun, but I could not do it, because I believe that death is not the end”. He then started weeping. So I asked him if he would please give me his gun and we could go back and talk. As I was leaving the room I ‘mouthed’ to Jackie to please call the police, for the man was obviously a danger to himself and very possibly others.
We did not talk about much since he had seen me more than a few times over the last year or so. Mostly he just looked at the floor. Then he looked up and asked: “You had the lady in the front office call the police, didn’t you?” I said, “Yes”. He smiled and said “Good; I knew you would do that, I need help”. As he continued to talk I could see that he did not like the way he was. Hated the way he treated his now ex-wife and wished that he did not believe in an afterlife, for what is the point of killing himself if he will still exist after he put the bullet through his head.
The police came and waited when Jackie told them that she had the gun and that I was talking to him. So after the talk he willingly went with them. I don’t know what happened to him since, but the fact that I have not seen him, may be a good indication that he got help and moved on with his life. I hope so. When sober, he was a kind, gentle man, when he drank, well something dark, mean and destructive came out.
One of our guests at the time who heard about what happened began to curse the man. I listened for a while and responded in this vein. “There is no need to judge the man. It is not our place. We dealt with him the only way we could by calling the police and thank God he did no harm to anyone with the gun”.
When we speak of judging another in the parochial sense, we are not talking about justice and fairness but about anger and at times, for the need for revenge. People have problems, many of them serious, and there are some who can’t receive help, others can. This man seemed to hit bottom, and decided that he did not want death, but more life, so he came here, hoping that I would call the police. Why he could not do it on his own, I am not sure, perhaps it was too hard for him to call and ask for help, someone else had to do it for him. Perhaps what saved him was his accepting responsibility to the reality that he destroyed a relationship, the one with his wife, which he wanted, but could not have because of his violence and anger that he unleashed towards her. She was right to leave him; no one should submit themselves to that kind of treatment. He was way out of control; any kind of ‘real’ relationship is not possible when someone is in that state.
We are called to compassion towards others. To judge in the sense of thinking another human being is worthless, or useless, or should be killed or worse, is a heavy burden to carry and has nothing to do with justice. If someone needs to be dealt with to protect others, yes of course. If someone has a mental condition that makes them dangerous to others or to themselves, then yes we have to make judgments based on fairness and not on some powerful inner emotion. There are people who need to be locked away for life; there is no doubt about that. The actual worth of another human being however is not for anyone else to judge, we can’t, we don’t know enough about what is going on inside.
Lives are ruined, innocent people can die,
leading to further anger because of the judgments
that we can place on one another.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
