Street Justice

His fists are clenched and he has an angry look on his face. The tears are streaming and his eyes are fixated on the boy who wronged him. He stares strongly at his opponent over the shoulder of his friend who is holding him back from fighting. He is seven years old. Just moments ago everyone was playing together nicely and having a great time, but instantly the peace broke down and now street justice must be served. The young restrainer loses his grip on his friend, and the corner of Richland and Susquehanna in Homewood is about to turn into the courtroom of the streets. Justice will be served first with words that sting, and then desperate punches will be thrown. I intervene. At first I stand in between the foes. I talk sense that bounces off of them. I negotiate, but it does not work. They slowly edge closer to one another. I ask an older boy to restrain the opponent. I focus my attention on the main character of this story. I face him, get down on one knee, put my hands on his strained shoulders, and I try to make eye contact with him. I can tell his adrenaline is pumping strong, and his breathing is still choked up by his tears. "Let's go in the house" I say softly, even though my first thought was to yell it at him. I do not like to yell at kids, and I can't very well give other people a hard time for yelling at children if I can't model a better way to interact myself. Thankfully, I have found that calm words often speak louder than yelling in escalated situations. My words finally break through, and I can tell because he shifts his eye contact away from his enemy and into my eyes. He slowly starts to climb down from his mountain of rage. I give a soft push to initiate the journey to my living room, and he shows that it's OK by taking a couple of backward steps. He glances back at his opponent and delivers one more verbal blow before turning around to storm into my house. I follow close behind and extend my arm to our sofa when we are inside. "Take a few minutes to calm down and then we'll talk" I say. He does what I ask. The tears slow down. Normal breathing sets in. His shoulders slump, and he stops clenching his fists. He's back to being himself. He's ready to talk. We do. I don't lecture him. I just listen and interject here and there. We talk through what happened. I intentionally shift the conversation towards reconciliation and forgiveness. He understands. I give him some more space to cool off while I go outside to have the same conversation with the other boy. In time I bring them together. Apologies are made. Forgiveness is granted, at least for the time being. I want to overkill the situation, but the boys have already moved on. They start playing together again. They are friends again. Just like that. That comforts me, but I know that this probably won't be a long term truce. And some day, they won't be seven years old any more. They'll be fifteen, or twenty-five, or fifty-one years old. I won't be there to deescalate the situation, or keep them from verbally or physically assaulting one another. Some day they'll have access to more than words or fists with which to enact street justice upon one another. Will the lessons I have been teaching and modeling for them somehow kick in then? I don't know. God knows. God is the one with the plan for their lives, not me. God is in control. I just need to be obedient to follow Jesus, and on this particular day God chose the holy ground on the corner of Richland and Susquehanna as the place where I was called upon to serve. Christians cannot live out God's call to reach people in need if we are unwilling to enter into people's pain.