Cruelty and Corruption

The proud have derided me cruelly,
but I have not turned from your law.
-Psalm 119:51

This is part of today's Bible reading from the Morning Prayer service of the Daily Office. I admit, I don't often observe the Daily Office, but during Lent I do try to explore ways of adding worship time to my daily life and will sometimes participate in morning or noonday prayer. Today, though, I sought out the daily office because of something I observed on the way to work this morning.

Every morning I take the Red Line train to get from my apartment in Chinatown to the University of Chicago campus. This morning as I was exiting the train at the Garfield station, I noticed two little girls sitting to the right of the door. They were sitting on their knees, facing towards the front of the train so they could see the passing scenery once the train started traveling along its tracks again. As I was stepping onto the platform I noticed that there was a message written on the back of the coat one of the little girls was wearing.

It said, "Sky is dirty."

I didn't really process this message until I was completely off of the train and walking on the platform towards the escalator. It occurred to me that these words were probably written on the coat by another child, a cruel insult to the girl who would be forced to wear this badge of shame every cold day. I can only assume that her parents were unable to launder the message from the coat, and I imagine that the reason she continues to wear this garment is because another winter coat probably isn't something she owns or her family can afford.

I realize I'm making a lot of assumptions here, and I could have misread the entire situation. Nonetheless this whole episode made me start thinking about cruelty. As I pondered cruelty, especially the cruelty of children, I winced to remember acts of cruelty that were perpetrated against me when I was a child, and of things I did and said that were intended to hurt or shame others.

I wondered what - if anything - the readings for the Daily Office might have to say about cruelty, and was intrigued to find the passage from the 119th psalm among the readings for today's morning prayer service. In the psalm the petitioner expresses how joyous it is to follow God's law, even though in doing so he must endure cruelty from those around him. The psalm eventually describes the value of God's law and how trusting in that law will deliver the petitioner into salvation through the Lord.

The recent municipal elections in Chicago, in which Mayor Daley won a sixth term, also got me thinking about cruelty, not to mention trusting in the law. Our mayor won re-election handily, despite the widespread (and, likely accurate) perception that he and his administration are corrupt. It doesn't matter, people have told me, if his administration is corrupt because the city is a cleaner, better place to live in than it was when he first came into office.

If corruption is the price we pay for a nicer city, is that not a price too dear? Someone even told me today with nary a hint of irony that the mayor may be corrupt, but he is fair. To me, that sounds like a convenient bit of double-speak that serves to salve one's conscience. If corruption is what keeps the city functioning, doesn't that require that someone is getting the raw end of the deal? And shouldn't we be concerned about them?

There is a phrase in the confession of sin we recite each week at church where we ask to be forgiven for the sins committed on our behalf. Living better through corruption is a sin committed by others on our behalf, and thus we are culpable for it. We would do well to remember that.

But we may be too cruel even to care.