Should this be forgotten?

Here's an ethical dilemna.

If you were a doctor, and the man who was just brought into the hospital was a psychologist who had just killed his wife and daughters and attempted suicide...

Would you try to help him?

You probably would. You probably would help him, but I doubt you could feel like you had accomplished anything, that you had done something right.

Maybe you had some run-ins with the man in the past. Maybe you knew people who had been his patients. And now he's yours, and the autopsy of the three people he has shot has not even been completed yet.

Or maybe you aren't the doctor. Maybe you're a neighbour. A friend of the family, you have always regarded them as nice people -- hardworking, funny, easygoing. The two parents obviously loved their children and wanted to give them the best they possibly could. Then one day you check your inbox, and notice a message from the father. You scroll down and click on it, and what you read next will forever change your perception of the world.

There's one problem with my analogies. Even though I have mentioned certain elements that instantly make you think of one case in particular, I'm still not being specific enough. Because this happens. It happens every day, all over our poor, wayward world. It happens without anticipation, without justification. It happens, and it cuts those connected deeply. It happens, and it is forgotten without being understood.

So it happens again.

I have never cried when a person died. But I should be crying. I should be weeping, bowed over with grief and with desperation. I should weep, and then I should straighten up and be strong, and instead of crying I should go into the world and try, try to end evil, so that we should have fewer reasons to cry. I would not succeed, which might be a good thing. Yet I know that if I am to look back on life and think that I have done something right, I must find a way to fight.

The man in the hospital. Do we give him a second chance? Would giving him a second chance put others at risk? Does he want a second chance?

Lord, have mercy.