The Bright Light Of A Dark Day

She is an adorable 5-year-old parapalegic, her spine shattered by an errant bullet nearly three years ago. Despite little Kai Leigh Harriott's sad start to life, she has shown us all something wonderful: Along with her mother, Tonya David, Kai Leigh has shown us the path of forgiveness, and the power of grace.

In a truly moving, even startling, moment yesterday in a Boston courtroom as Kai Leigh faced Anthony Warren, the man who shot her, she said to him through her sobs:

''What you done to me was wrong," the dimpled girl with purple and yellow plastic ties in her braids said softly. ''But I still forgive him." (The Boston Globe)

And after Anthony Warren, who pled guilty to the charges against him, told Kai Leigh and her mother, ''I'm sorry for what I've done to you and your family ... I was known in the street for all the wrong reasons, and now I want to be known for the right reasons," Kai Leigh's mother walked over to Warren, shook his hands, and then gave him a hug. The TV news footage is powerful.

Kai Leigh's mother told the court, "We are not victims here. We're victors."

According to the Globe, "Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford called the statements the most moving she had heard in 17 years on the bench." The Globe reports that Justice Botsford sentenced Mr. Warren to 13-17 years with 5 years probation, less than half what prosecutors sought.

But the forgiveness and grace demonstrated by Kai Leigh's mother in particular does not come cheaply or easily. There is a cost:

''Kai was not born unhealthy or in a wheelchair," she told the court. ''I can still remember the pitter-patter of her little feet."

At this hour Christendom honors the dark day of the Passion of Christ, the Good Friday wherein we are shown the price of God's forgiveness. He, too, was once a little child whose pittering, pattering feet were heard by His mother. But He is the Incarnate God; the Son of the very God who knows the pitter-patter of every child's steps; who knows the pains of every human heart. Omniscience stares unceasingly and unfailingly at the human condition: it knows suffering from every conceivable angle, knowing what it is like to rape and be raped, to kill and be killed, to shoot and be shot; to forgive and to be forgiven. God is the only Being who is both victim and villain, simultaneously. Knowing all things, He can know nothing else. And each time He witnesses, without any editing, the suffering and sins of this earth, there is death in Him, in His very heart. His forgiveness comes at a price.

Today, once again, we think of that Heart voluntarily and vulnerably exposed to the world, nailed in indifference to a wooden cross: Omniscience is crucified and we stare in wonder, noting that even omniscience breaks down and bleeds.

Kai Leigh Harriott shows us the way, a painful path that leads to freedom and joy. To think she is described by all her loved ones as a little girl full of happiness, in love with life; a little saint never voicing a single complaint since her cruel injury. She may not move herself now, but her stillness may move the world.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Technorati tags: kai leigh harriott, Grace, Forgiveness

Addendum, April 18, 2006, 11:25 am: I found this piece lovingly presented.