Friday, June 17, 2011

Essay: Letters of Love

By Alejandro Blanco, TLC 2000

It has taken me a long time to understand the nature of what we do.

Until a couple of years ago, it was easy to feel, sense if you will, that what we do is go to battle. Equipping ourselves with the tools of the trade, the weapons, we would go into the courtroom to kill the enemy. We become good at killing the other side and we would win for our clients.

Or, we are killed this time; we lose our clients’ case. And a part of us will die. But, as in the phoenix bird story, we will regenerate to go to battle yet for another client -another chance to be Warriors, to engage in the battle. Our “dead” clients will be few, we hope. And we will honor those who have died along the way. This is, after all, an honorable war. It is one that must be fought. For if WE, the Warriors, don’t stand to fight, who will? The Reign of Injustice will spread about the land. Evil triumphs when Good People don’t stand against it. It is how we have been taught in the stories of our childhood; it is what we have come to believe. And so we stand … against evil.

I saw fashioning, interpreting, our learning along this understanding of the world, along this “Way of Being”, to quote Carl Rogers the founder of the human potential movement. We talked about our losses and our wins in terms of fighting the “good fight”, as our Women Warriors rolled their eyes.

Lately, in the midst of some wins that have impacted me deeply, I have come upon another way of perceiving what we do. Feel free to disagree and criticize, since that will spawn your own way of understanding this Truth. It is real to me, since it is the way I perceive it. What we do –killing in the courtroom- is an act of love, a true Love Letter we write to those of US who, in this incongruent and cruel world, are harmed by the carelessness, greediness and, at times, plain meanness of people who refuse to see OUR humanness.

I have been asked to dig deeper, to explain how and where I reached this way of perceiving what we do. How can Death and Love co-exist? How can we Kill out of Love?

I don’t know how to delve deeper into this truth with words. Perhaps some stories might scratch the surface and help the deeper dig. I have further learned that some truths lie deep within the self, to be uncovered and treasured only after the exacting dig has exhausted and prepared us for the moment.

Sergeant Cabral, a Guarani native and grenadier soldier in the 1800s from my native Corrientes, threw himself in front of spears intended to kill General San Martin of the argentine revolutionary forces during the battle of San Lorenzo; he took the Spanish spears, saving the General’s life. The Argentines grenadiers went on to defeat the Spaniards in that battle. After the battle, General Don Jose de San Martin came up to him to tell the Spaniards had been defeated. Cabral said: “Muero contento che General, hemos batido al enemigo …” (I die content my General, we have defeated the enemy). He died for the love of freedom.

Our world has grown accustomed to inflict on us Pain without rhyme or reason. It hurts US, and it does not care. Many people have grown used to this “way” of the world; they join in causing our brothers and sisters unforgivable pain. It is as though an insane virus has taken over this “dog” that goes around spreading hate and pain, hurt and madness. And after this “dog” has hurt one of our loved ones, we stand in front of the dog, ready to die or kill, because love compels us to take that stand. Energized with something we quite cannot state in words we move to kill those who embrace this Insanity that hurts all of US, including them, so as to restore balance.

That is what I am talking about.

While we earn a potentially fantastic living by being trial lawyers –true Peaceful Warriors- I am willing to stake my claim to the possibility that it is this type of Love resonating in your heart that drives you to be spurned, scorned, vilified, crucified many a time, so that Rosie –or Johnny, Mary, Jamal, Eulanda, Vijay, and so many others- will have a voice, a voice for Justice, whether it be Civil or Criminal Justice. Whether we get them the right amount of Money for the Wrong done; or the right Freedom for the Wrongful Accusation, they will have Our Voice resonating for them.

Call me a lunatic, but I insistently argue that without Love in your Heart, you would not -could not- find the courage to write that closing argument, or rake your soul for the “right” voir dire questions, or re-enact yet one more time the story in the hopes of finding its essence so that you can tell the universal story to the jury and obtain Justice. You simply could not stand. And would give up the Way of the Warrior.

And so, find that Love, and stand … Write with your life, in pages of your life, all of the Letters of Love that come to you to be written. In the courtroom. Be a Warrior.

No comments:

Post a Comment