Pinata Justice

It wasn't too many years ago that the family and I attended a church event.  As typical Lutheran nights in the Midwest go, there was a lot of food stretched out across the front of the gym, there were an adequate number of white plastic round tables rolled out across the floor and plenty of end-of-spectrum people noisily getting louder and louder in the acoustically challenged gym.  What I mean by 'end-of-spectrum' is there were a lot of really young kids (accompanied by parents who wanted an inexpensive way to both entertain and feed their ravenous children) and generally older folks (who wanted to both entertain and feed the ravenous children that would be screaming around the gym for a few hours.) 

So, the parents of the children would sit exhaustedly slumped at the white plastic tables holding a white Styrofoam cup of coffee but too tired to lift it to their lips.  Every once in a while they would put their parental periscope up to make sure that their children were not causing damage to themselves or to other children, but most assuredly they were content to be in a safe place to soak up life with others.

I was one of those at the tables.  My girls ages were still in single digits but they were so excited for the night.  Hurriedly they ingested some form of potluck item, a casserole, pasta dish or Jello salad smothered in whipped cream and then headed off for the sideshow row games lining the sides of the gym.  We're not talking about ski-ball, but certainly there was a ring toss, a basket shoot and ultimately, at the very end of the night...

The piñata.

It was an interesting read to look up its history.  Most would probably know the piñata from children's birthdays parties as common as Pin the Tail on the Donkey (another warped tradition but I won't get into that.)  Traditionally, a piñata is a crepe papered animal, stuffed with candy and sweets and hung from the roof, or a higher place, by a string.  One by one, children are blindfolded and given a stick, or broom handle, spun around a few times and then told to strike the piñata.  For the most sadistic of parents, they don't tell the kids that the piñata can actually be raised or lowered so they end up looking quite foolish while sounds of laughter ring in their ears while they are blindfolded. 

The piñata, just like most other things, has two different opinions on its origins.  From the Hispanic Culture website, they claim that the piñata is from the Aztecs or Mayans and that eventually the newcomers from Europe took the piñata back.  From another site called Spanish Town, they claim that the original piñata traveled back with Marco Polo from China and was brought into celebrations under the name 'Pignatta' which means 'Clay Pot.'  For right now, I think the Chinese history one is more interesting to write about because the piñata then made its way across the Atlantic ocean (why they would take piñatas across is beyond me) and the religious missionaries used the piñata to draw in the local people to hear about the ways of God.  They would decorate the piñata as Satan, seven horns and all, and let the locals beat the hell out of the devil with a stick.  What a great evangelical tool, right?

Once someone got a good lick in and the 'clay pot' would crack open, all the sweets would roll out from the innards of the broken toy and the children would happily collect them.  Imagine in those ancient times though, the children holding up a piece of candy and shouting to their priest, "Hey, Father, I'm eating Satan's gall bladder!" 

This night at the church function, the piñata was already strung from a basketball hoop high enough that no person under the age of thirteen (and under the height of 6'6) could get at the brightly colored donkey stuffed with unknown chocolates and goodies.  Every once in a while you could see a circle of smallish children pointing at the piñata and scheming in their own childlike way to see if there was a way they could lift each other on their shoulders to burgle the piñata before anyone else got their broom handles on it.

The time came for the piñatacide and the first vociferous boy who had barged to the front of the line was given strict instructions about 'one hit and don't keep whacking away so everyone else gets a chance.'  Before the blindfold was put over his eyes, you could see the glint that he had not listened to a word the person had just said to him and he made sure there was just a sliver of vision underneath the blindfold where he could get a good look at the target.

The leader of the piñatacide backed all the children out of the blast radius and then the children began to shout to the boy, "Hit it!"  "Kill it!" "Hurry up!"  If we weren't in a church you'd have to wonder if the police wouldn't be showing up.  The young boy was spun around a few times and then given free reign to eviscerate El Senor Burro.  Pretending to be dizzy, the young boy staggered slightly and looked under his blindfold, squared up and swung.  WHACK!  Dead hit, but the boy drew back again and swung again and again.  The leader was yelling for him to stop, but no one dared get in the way of the deadly instrument being waved back and forth at random.  Finally, a voice came from the back, "STOP IT NOW!"  It was the boy's mother and upon hearing not only those words but the condition of her embarrassment, the young man dropped the stick and ripped off his blindfold.  After being welcomed into his herd, the boy accepted congratulations for stymieing the adults.

The next of the boys wanted to shove his way in but the facilitator of death barred his path and thought a little more deeply about it and lined everyone up in size order, from smallest to biggest.  Theoretically, this would allow even the tiniest hands to be involved in the piñata smiting.  The littlest girl was placed forward; she was probably only eighteen months old, could barely walk, but she was cute and you could hear the crowd oogle and google over the diminutive would be slayer.  I rolled my eyes a little bit because we were wasting time and as I watched as the parents took out their video cameras and record the syrupy sweet event, I knew that the little girl not only had no interest in being blindfolded, but she really didn't want to hit the donkey either.  She wanted to cuddle it.  All those bright colors...  But, they put the whooping stick in her hand anyway and snapped photos for a good twenty seconds until the girl's parents said they'd gotten enough pictures and gave permission for the next child to beat the piñata.

On and on it went.  Impatiently, some of the ten-year-old boys danced back and forth, foot to foot, wanting to be the glorious victor who cracked the belly of the beast.  After forty-five minutes of little children tapping the piñata, the boys finally got their chance.  The piñata, after swinging motionless (or mostly motionless) from a string and absorbing small amounts of punishment, was beginning to look a little worse for wear.  The last boy, put on the blindfold and before even being spun about decided to swing.  It was a slow motion nightmare.  The stick traveled quickly through the air but slowly through my mind and there was another smaller boy standing beneath the piñata staring at its beauty and wondering about its innards.  Broom handle met back of the head with a sickening thud and a gasp.  Can anyone say, "Is there a lawyer in the house?"

The mother ran to her screaming child.  No blood, thankfully, but a nice little bump on the back of his head.  The mother pulled her boy out of the blast radius, raised her hand and said, "He's all right.  He'll be fine!" and motioned with her hand to continue the sanctioned violence against the stuffed toy.  A sigh of relief issued from the crowd and the young man who had just issued the blow was given strict instructions to swing only when give permission and, when the piñata did crack to stop swinging immediately. 

It only took one more swing.  El Senor Burro could not absorb any more abuse and he cracked majestically from the neck.  Tragically, the head stayed connected to the string and the rest of the body fell to the floor disgorging its sugary contents onto the gym floor.  There was a mad scramble; little kids pushed out of the way.  One young man claimed a small heap of candy lying on top of it as if he had just conquered Mt. Everest. 

I could only look at the decapitated head of the piñata hanging morosely from the basketball hoop.  What a world we live in.

Sometimes our present day digital culture treats justice in the same way that we treat piñatas.  Someone makes a mistake, whether on Facebook or Twitter, writes something that can be taken out of context, or was just inappropriate, and people then share the Tweet or Post.  Within minutes or hours (depending upon the inappropriateness of the words) hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of people have lined up for their own shot at this 'rude' person.  Some might call it vigilante shaming, I would call it piñata justice.

A person has been hung mostly motionless from a string of their own making.  A person just as full of sweetness and goodness like anyone else.  But they've done something wrong - they don't know it at the time because they've just done what everyone else does: they post every detail of their life on line hoping for a response, a like, a care, anything that signifies 21st century relationship - but they didn't think it through.  Take, for instance, Holly Jones, a woman who just wanted to have a good meal at a restaurant but was annoyed by that which she thought was a 'druggie who had the audacity to have a heart attack during her meal.'

Okay, I get it - this is about the least appropriate thing you could think while someone is clinging to life and although it represented an interruption in her life, it's one thing to think it, but it's a completely different thing to put thoughts to Twitter.  Within hours, Holly Jones had been so thoroughly publically shamed, she would go on to lose her job and most of her social respect. 

Yes, she made a mistake, but in the ensuing days after her Tweet, people lined up for miles in the digital piñata line waiting for their turn to take a blindfolded swipe at this person that they'd never met, but somehow it made them feel better to 'beat the hell out of her.'  The people in the piñata line were blind to Holly - they'd never met her before; they didn't know what she'd been through, but now that she was a static target, it was time to whack away at her for her transgressions.  What point was to be proved, I'm not sure, other than be very careful what you post online.  But also, I think, be very careful which piñata line you join.

Here's the deal.  Some Pharisees and teachers of the law brought a woman (piñata) to Jesus and metaphorically strung her up before the Teacher.  She had been caught in the act of adultery.  The law said that she should be (piñata -ed) stoned for her wanton act of lust, but what did Jesus think?  Jesus, at first, didn't seem to even listen to this; he didn't want to step in the piñata line.  Jesus, in fact, was quite content to take the blindfolds off their eyes and let them see their own transgressions which he posted in the dirt with his finger.  "If any of you haven't done anything - ever - that you were ashamed of, by all means, here is the stick," points at the woman, "there is the piñata." 

The Pharisees wanted to break this woman open.  They wanted to see the sweetness of this person spilled on the ground to make a point, or, in this case, to trap Jesus.  She was just an object to them, and a convenient excuse to pull God's vision away from their own mistakes.

They all left.  They didn't throw stones because they weren't without sin. 

So why do we?  Why do we in this world of public hatred continue to crack people open and leave them hanging in their damaged state spilling whatever goodness that they had on the ground so that other people can roll in the gore of their life and claim it for themselves, or claim that 'they were the one who brought the darkness to light?  Why do we do this?

I'll let you ponder your own role in piñata justice.