Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76Plough Quarterly • Summer 2015 21 and indignation. Even if we remain wounded, a forgiving attitude will prevent us from lashing back at someone who has caused us pain. And it can strengthen our resolve to forgive again the next time we are hurt. Dorothy Day writes: God is on the side even of the unworthy, as we know from the story Jesus told of the prodigal son. . . . Readers may claim that the prodigal son returned penitent to his father’s house. But who knows, he might have gone out and squandered money on the next Saturday night, he might have refused to help with the farm work and asked to be sent to finish his education instead, thereby further incurring his brother’s righ- teous wrath. . . . Jesus has another answer to that one: to forgive one’s brother seventy times seven. There are always answers, although they are not always calculated to soothe. Strangely, those who suffer the worst things in life often forgive most readily. Bill Pelke, a Vietnam veteran from Indiana whom I met at an anti–death penalty event, lost his grand- mother to a brutal murder, yet found closure in seeking reconciliation with the teenager who killed her. Bill’s grandmother was an outgoing woman who gave Bible lessons to children in her neighborhood. One afternoon in May 1985 she opened the door to four girls from the local high school several blocks away. Before she knew it, her attackers had knocked her to the floor. Minutes later, the house ransacked, they fled the premises in her old car, leaving her on the floor, bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds. Bill remembers: The girls were caught giving joy rides to friends in the stolen car. Later they went to trial. Sentencing came fifteen months later: one girl got thirty-five years, two got sixty years, and the last, Paula Cooper, got death. I was satisfied that at least one of them would be executed: I felt that if they weren’t, the court would be saying my grandmother wasn’t important, and I felt that she was a very important person. About four months after Paula was sentenced, I broke up with a girl I had been dating. I was trying to get the relationship back together and was very depressed. I couldn’t find peace about anything. Then one day at work, while operat- ing an overhead crane (I worked for Bethlehem Steel), I was thinking about why things hadn’t worked out, also with my grandmother, and I just started praying. “Why, God? Why?” Suddenly I thought about Paula – this young girl, the youngest female in the country on death row – and I pictured her saying, “What have I done? What have I done?” I remembered the day Paula was sentenced to death; I recalled her grandfather in court, wailing, “They’re killing my baby.” He was escorted from the room. There were tears rolling down his cheeks. . . . I began to think of my grandmother, her faith, and what the Bible has to say about for- giveness. I recalled three verses: the one which says that for God to forgive you, you first need to forgive others; the one where Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy times seven”; the one where Jesus says, when he is being crucified, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Paula didn’t know what she was doing. When a girl stabs a woman thirty-three times, she is not in her right mind. Suddenly I felt I had to forgive her. I prayed, right there and then, that God would give me love and compassion for her. That prayer changed my life. I no longer wanted her to die in the electric chair. What would an execution solve for me or anyone else? Bill added, “When I had gone to the crane I was a defeated person: forty-five minutes Bill Pelke Continued from page 19