The Reiki Blog

An eye for an eye. December 8, 2011

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” Mahatma Gandhi so wisely said. Who could argue with his wisdom? And yet, sometimes it’s hard not to wish for repayment in kind, especially when someone’s charged with preying on the helpless.

Living in Pennsylvania, despite my sports-blindness I can’t help but be aware of the sex-abuse scandal surrounding former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. Boys as young as ten have reported being raped in locker-room shower stalls, raped in Sandusky’s basement, screaming for help, while Sandusky’s wife, on the floor above, somehow failed to hear or help them. To make matters even more appalling, Sandusky adopted and fostered many boys in his home, and founded a charity for inner-city boys from which he apparently selected the majority of his victims. 

From everything I’ve read about Jerry Sandusky, he sounds like a Peter Pan, a little boy who never grew up mentally and loved the company of other little boys, but unfortunately grew up hormonally and turned his love of boys into a sexual outlet. His very childlike innocence wrought far greater harm than an outright predator, since boys could sense that he genuinely liked and related to them, so they trusted him. 

It is very, very tempting to view Sandusky as an evil predator and hope that he goes to jail and experiences what it’s like to be repeatedly molested and raped against your will. And perhaps beaten, tortured and killed by cons who’ve landed in the slammer precisely because a Jerry Sandusky molested them when they were young and trusting.

But, though Sandusky’s acts are inexcusable, and his insistence on his innocence is unpardonable, he seems, at the end of the day, a wilful child, not a monster. An immature adult-child who should have been identified as a potential threat, shut away, sheltered, and loved, not unleashed on an unsuspecting populace to wreak horrific acts on innocent children entrusted to his care.

Usui Founder instructed all of us who follow the Reiki Way to be kind. I don’t think he meant “Be kind to good, enlightened people.” I think he meant “Be kind to all beings.”  Be kind to the innocent; be kind to the flawed. Be kind to everybody. To Jerry Sandusky, his wife, and his victims; to abused animals and their owners; to toothless street people and miserable cubicle rats like Dilbert.

“Be kind” is a broad, decisive, sweeping command. It makes no exceptions, invites no quibbling. Usui Founder doesn’t say, “Do it if.” He says, “Just do it.”

The Catholic Church in its ancient wisdom says the same thing in a different way: “Hate the sin, love the sinner.”

I hate Jerry Sandusky’s sin. But unlike the Church, I’m not big enough to love him, the sinner. I really have to fight that “eye for an eye” urge in his case, even though I can see his own appalling innocence. But I also acknowledge that Usui Founder and Gandhiji and the Church are wiser than I am. I certainly don’t want my own thoughts or actions to make the whole world blind!

Just for today, be kind.

All content © copyright Red Dog Reiki. All rights reserved.