A Passage that Speaks to Me

Yes, it's a Bible passage. No, it's not me preaching.

Then the LORD said: "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great, and their sin so grave,that I must go down and see whether or not their actions fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me. I mean to find out."

While the two men walked on farther toward Sodom, the LORD remained standing before AbrahaThen Abraham drew nearer to him and said: "Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?

"Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city; would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?

Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty, so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike! Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?

The LORD replied, "If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake."

Abraham spoke up again: "See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes!

What if there are five less than fifty innocent people? Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?"

"I will not destroy it," he answered, "if I find forty-five there."

But Abraham persisted, saying, "What if only forty are found there?" He replied, "I will forebear doing it for the sake of the forty."

Then he said, "Let not my Lord grow impatient if I go on. What if only thirty are found there?" He replied, "I will forebear doing it if I can find but thirty there."

Still he went on, "Since I have thus dared to speak to my Lord, what if there are no more than twenty?" "I will not destroy it," he answered, "for the sake of the twenty."

But he still persisted: "Please, let not my Lord grow angry if I speak up this last time. What if there are at least ten there?"

"For the sake of those ten," he replied, "I will not destroy it."

The LORD departed as soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham, and Abraham returned home.

Genesis 18:20-33

I'm a Catholic, and I fit the stereotype of not being as well versed in the Bible as I could be. Even with other Catholics, I'm a bit weak. I see people posting facebook Bible verse statuses, and I realize that I've never even heard those verses. But in Church on Sunday, for the first time in a long time, I heard a reading that really spoke to me. It was this one.

"Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?"

This verse, 25, in particular, spoke out to me. My previous post discusses my plans for pursuit of defense law as a career. This post justifies it.

"Far be it from you to do such a thing, to make the innocent die with the guilty, so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!"

The accused party is and always will be, in American criminal justice, innocent until proven guilty. So why do we have wrongful convictions? Why do we sometimes have what amount to summary trials?

Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's time that it came back in style. I'm interested in making sure innocent people aren't swept away with the guilty. I'm interested in fighting (or arguing) to assure their freedom. I now have biblical justification for doing just that.

Why Atticus Finch?

Yes, that is Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in my profile picture. Some of you might be wondering why that and not the RHCP asterisk or a MUSE album cover or the Pink Floyd prism or the Abbey Road photo...you get the idea.

In my freshman year of high school, one of the main assignments in our English composition was to read Harper Lee's classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The first few chapters were dull, and incredibly so. Having just finished Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, a play that is not only exciting but thought provoking, reading this book was almost torture. My subsequent change in opinion can only be described as miraculous.

At the time, all I really cared about in life was playing music and performing. I was a freshman in high school, and with that status came seeming invincibility, knowledge of everything, hard-headedness, and absolute confidence in the ability of my band, Forget About Tomorrow, to "make it". The band didn't even survive a year. But at the time, I felt like I could do anything and everything.

My parents didn't agree. Whenever weekends came around, and I started talking about a desire to major in music and theatre when I went to college, the arguments would begin. We must have had the same weekly argument for six months. Looking back, I know they were completely right. The hopes of any musician or actor are based almost entirely on chance. One has to be in the right place at the right time.

My mother, in particular, told me to stick with music as a hobby on the side, using the example of Ruben Blades, a succesful recording artist who had a serious law profession. I gave some thought to this possibility, but then threw it aside. I wanted to perform for a living, and I would have none of this law nonsense.

These opinions began to change when I got to the meat of To Kill a Mockingbird, the Tom Robinson trial. While Atticus may be a fictional character, his performance(note the use of this particular word) in the trial was fantastic. He defended Tom beautifully, subverting the prosecution's key witness and revealing the truth behind her testimony. He had the ultimate dedication to what was, ultimately, a lost cause. Atticus Finch represents a breed of attorney that gets lost in the piles of lawyer jokes.

He is honest, he is just, and he is damned good at what he does. He will do whatever he can to keep an innocent man free, even when threatened with beating and death.

The trial of Tom Robinson made me realize that a good defense attorney is as much a performer as any actor. They work with words to manipulate the witness to speak the truth and to manipulate the jury to see the truth.

Atticus Finch made me realize that I wouldn't mind being Ruben Blades. Hell, I definitely wouldn't mind being Atticus Finch. Litigation, like a live performance of music, is exciting and volatile. In one second, an entire case can fall apart or come together.

I didn't realize the true significance of this discovery freshman year. It became more clear sophomore year. I was in a new school and a new writing centered program. Essays started to seem more like fun and less like busy work. Law was becoming a more and more plausible career.

Junior year, I was invited to and attended a conference in Washington, DC, for high school students aspiring to be lawyers. It was intended to give a sort of sample into the busy life of an attorney. That conference was the best experience I have ever had. Imagine being in a hotel with hundreds of other high school students with the same career goals as you, many inspired by the same thing...Atticus Finch. It all comes back to him.

Thus, thanks to a book that I thought would be awful and the character that turned out to be an idealistic badass, I can now call my self an aspiring defense attorney.

I guide myself by the question, "WWAFD?"

*EDIT* Added July 21 at 11:18

For more reflections on the invincibility and stubbornness of people in high school that I mentioned earlier in the blog, I would recommend reading John Green's novel, Looking For Alaska. I personally think it should be required reading for teenagers.