Crime, Punishment, Control and A Greater Guidance

 

There is an early meeting in the morning so I am posting Sunday evening.  Many of the clients I work with have felonies and have a difficult time finding work.  Many of these felonies are drug/alcohol related and once on their records they limit many possibilities.  If these people paid for their crime by doing time how come they keep getting punished? 

One of the clients I worked with recently move to another state to explore a heart connection with a woman he had been friends with when he was much younger.  The reconnection went very well and she helped him find a job and he went to work and did a good job until it was found out that he had a felony in his past.  Someone had sent out a letter to expose his past.  I guess they figured he hadn’t suffered enough. 

My client then lost his job, his woman friend lost her management job for recommending him and the general manager that hired him may loose his.   So now he has paid for his crime again and someone he loves pays for his crime and someone he works for may also pay for his crime.   What is wrong with this scenario?  

How come in this country we are so set on punishment?  Does punishing people really rehabilitate them?  Does putting people in jail make them better people?  Is firing someone who recommended another person fair?  How come it is ok to punish people without questioning if that is a good idea?  It seems that punishment is about shaming another, about trying to put them in their place, or trying to control them.  What gives people the right to pass judgment over others?  How come in a work environment in the private sector that employees and even management can be fired at the whim of whoever is in charge?  Do these people who are fired have any rights in the private sector?

These questions seem important to ask because too many people end up having their lives thrown into chaos by being fired for “the good of the company.”  It is as if the company matters more than the individual.  Is that ok with you?  Are we ponds to those in authority and to the corporate mindset?  Isn’t this about control and in this case taking the livelihood away from decent people to show who is in control?

There is so much to question about the way things are and this areas of past felonies and workers’ right’ are part of an old “crime and punishment” model that seems straight out the limited thinking of the past century.  This model is heartless and closed minded.   Isn’t it time the heart is brought back into the decisions made about other people’s lives?  When will we evolve past this heartlessness and seeing punishment as the only method of intervention for those that behave in ways others don’t want them to behave?

Another viewpoint for my client and his partner is that there is obviously something else for them to be doing than working for heartless companies who really don’t care about them.   The guiding forces of the Universe work in mysterious ways.   The events of the past few days certainly have the markings of some kind of abrupt shift that they need to pay attention to and explored at a deeper level.  It seems to me it is time for some quiet contemplation and no movement forward until they are clearly guided to do so.

May there be peace and a deeper knowing for all those who suffer under the heartless decisions of those who like to exhibit control.