Bravery?

The Brave One is about a woman whose fiance' is killed in a Central Park mugging while they are walking their dog. Shaken by grief and disturbed by her new fear of the city, she buys a gun and ends up using it--repeatedly--to "right wrongs" and defend herself and others. The problem: she no longer recognizes herself and realizes that her fiance' wouldn't have liked who she's become, either. But she can't stop. She keeps killing and killing to try to regain a sense of safety, peace, justice, and rightness in the world. In an interview last week Jodie Foster (the star) stated that the title was misleading--she doesn't consider her character brave at all. Her self-defense turns into vengeance and vigilante "justice."

It can only be considered justice if it is acceptable for us as individuals to punish those who have hurt us. Conventional Christian wisdom states that we should wait for a higher power, i.e. God or the police, to right our wrongs, and that true faith is a belief that God ultimately will let justice be done and that he is the only truly fair, impartial judge. We are not, in this line of thinking. However, it's hard to not want to take matters into your own hands.

When your safety has been shaken, either by something physically traumatic, like being attacked, or something emotionally traumatic (related to our upbringing or past relationships), it is so easy to become like the character of Erica. You feel a need to establish your own safety, to protect yourself by any means. You start making preemptive strikes to prevent harmful situations from even occurring. You take out the full measure of "justice" on people whether physically or emotionally.

I see this clearly in myself--when I feel mistreated, I lash out (even when the perpetrator doesn't realize that I am). I feel the right to get vengeance, to teach them a lesson--you can't get away with this--and to protect my own sense of safety. But watching this movie, I realized I don't want to be like her. I don't want to take matters into my own hands, meting out punishments to those around me when they fall short of my expectations (as happens often). I don't want to be that vengeful, resentful, angry person. I don't want to not be able to recognize myself, to not be able to trust others, to hurt others in the name of justice. You become a person characterized primarily by violence, the desire to hurt others. That flies completely against the Golden Rule, mercy, and compassion. I don't understand why they did these things to hurt me, but if I hurt and destroy them before even trying to find out, it's like I'm saying they're not worthy of love or forgiveness--and consequently neither am I, since I know I perpetrate as well.

It's so hard to break out of this cycle--Erica in the movie found it impossible. But last night I also read this: "my grace is sufficient for you; my strength is made perfect in your weakness."