When the tears are coming, take my handkerchief

“When the tears are coming, take my handkerchief.” Jurgen Moltmann, 89, a highly respected theologian in Germany, wrote these words in a letter, in which he enclosed a white handkerchief. The letter went to Kelly Gissendaner, who lives in Georgia, and who thought it was the most touching gift she had received in a very long time. Moltmann understands tears. As a young man during World War II, he joined Hitler’s army and later spent 3 years in a British POW camp, where he had much time to reflect on his country’s crimes and the horror of the Holocaust. His remorse was so great, he reported later, that he wished he had died on the battlefield. He began to read the Bible, and later said that Christ found him during this prison term, which was an “existential experience of healing our wounded souls.”

It’s not surprising that Moltmann and Gissendaner made a powerful connection. Kelly read his work in a theological studies program for women prisoners. She found his writings--especially The Theology of Hope--to be a powerful catalyst in her own healing. Kelly, who is 47 years old, has been on death row for 18 years. She was convicted of convincing her lover to murder her husband in 1997, a crime she has expressed deep remorse for. “I lost all judgment,” she wrote in her petition for clemency earlier this year. “I will never understand how I let myself fall into such evil, but I have learned firsthand that no one, not even me, is beyond redemption through God’s grace and mercy”.

Tonight, though I’m alone in my cabin, sitting at my computer,  I feel part of vigils taking place throughout the country, particularly outside the prison where Kelly will be executed if her last appeal fails. Earlier today the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles held another clemency hearing. It ended with another rejection of her petition to change her sentence to life in prison—despite a last-minute appeal from Pope Francis. He  had asked the board “to commute the sentence to one that would better express both justice and mercy.” Hours after that decision, Kelly’s three children and many other supporters wait and hope and pray.

I’m not sure why Kelly’s story touches me so deeply. It’s not a matter of having my religious beliefs validated.Though I have a Catholic background, I am no longer a part of a Christian institution or community.  I describe myself as a secular Buddhist—again, not part of a sangha (group of practitioners), but a lover of the Eightfold Path nonetheless. Like many Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists, I do think there is a great power in forgiveness and recognition of the human ability to heal, change and grow. Kelly’s story, which I first read in the news earlier this year, is an illustration of this. She graduated from the theology program in 2011—Moltmann attended the ceremony—and she has since counseled many other women prisoners, making a difference in their lives. No one disputes this.

Nor is my strong interest in Kelly’s story a result of direct experience with the US death penalty system. Yet, somehow the existence of the death penalty horrifies me in a way I can’t quite explain. No doubt it’s partly the idea of state-sanctioned premeditated murder. Tonight it feels like an armed stalker is on the loose and most likely cannot be stopped. Sister Helen Prejean, whose work was portrayed in the film Dead Man Walking, likens the process to a freeze-frame. “The state is freeze-framed in killing.”

During the past year, I’ve learned much from the Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Foundation (CADP), which hopes to make Colorado one of the growing number of states that ban capital punishment. Already 19 states have done so, and others retain it without using it. There are about 3000 inmates on death row in the US and about 40 are executed every year. A handful of states are responsible for most of the executions. There is much evidence that the death penalty is unfair and ineffective. Since DNA testing became available, 330 prisoners have been exonerated, 20 of whom were on death row, according to The Innocence Project. As CADP asserts, “Colorado’s death penalty is a failed public policy that is beyond repair. The death penalty risks the lives of the innocent, exacts a huge toll on the families of murder victims, traumatizes the guards and wardens forced to perform executions in our names, is unfairly applied, and costs millions in taxpayer dollars.”

With the growth of the anti-death-penalty movement, I wonder how far we can be from a time when the U.S. joins the long list of countries which have banned capital punishment (140). That time will probably not be in time for Kelly Gissandaner. It's now past midnight in Georgia, and the latest CNN report says a new execution time has not been set. The last appeal—centering on the concept of proportionality—is still pending. There is still hope, faint as it might be. If and when the State of Georgia executes her, as they will likely do soon, I hope she will have the white handkerchief from Jurgen Moltmann, along with the certain knowledge that she is loved and has lived well. For her mourners, the tears and the struggle will continue.