Statement from Barbara Becnel, Stan's advocate and co-author

She was a strong advocate----

I really appreciate that Barbara shouted out about this abomination and injustice as she left the death chamber. They always want us to be quiet, to go along, don't rock the boat, show decorum for something that doesn't deserve any decorum - it is an abomination.

When I went to San Quentin on Monday night I wanted to rush the gates, break into SAn Quentin. Slow down my car, stop the traffic, keep the witnessess from getting there. What do we do with a government that murders its own people? Keep writing them letters? It was the same with slavery....it kept going on because the powerful were not suffering...and actually, they were benefiting.

How do the powerful benefit from the death penalty in America? They put all the blame on the condemned person for crime. Not like economic injustice and corruption in the criminal justice system has anything to do with crime in America. By making one person a scapegoat for all the sins, America can blithely go about its way. Not like the US hasn't had its hands in murders throughout the world. It seems to me like the hands that pull the switch, or inject the chemicals, or whatever...they are hands coated with blood, dripping in blood of injustices never righted. Like I always ask-how many people were ever tried for a lynching? Let alone executed.

Anyway, Tookie had dignity in the very end. We saw Arnold as a totally amoral person...apparently concerned with the politics of killing as versus the morality. Its a shame. Keep shouting, Barbara.

Stanley Tookie Williams did what very few people seem to feel it necessary to do. He looked at himself, gave up a false sense of identity, and blossomed into his real self. And what a selfhood it is.

This is a topic for another day, maybe, but I say "is," not "was," because I don't think our identity, or our consciousness of our identity, is annihilated at what we call death. Although the material senses can't perceive it, my sense is that we do "take it with us," "it" being, in Mr. Williams's case, courage, integrity, dignity, grace, character, and faith.

For those left behind, this has been a bad week as we struggle to find our way through the grief. Sometimes during this week I've been able only to mentally list anything--anything--that I could think of to be grateful for. I am grateful first of all, for Stanley Tookie Williams himself. I'm thankful for Barbara Becnel. I'm thankful, in a bitter way, but still hanging on to being thankful for the rose growing in the nightmare, that Stanley Williams had loved ones whom he could see in what seemed to be his last moments. I am glad that one of the people who had petitioned for clemency so that Mr. Williams could continue his work was the widow of one of the people he was accused of killing. That counts as a little miracle.

Right now, I'm just gripping these things in my hands like a lifeline in the face of a horrendous wrong, a shameful day for this country.

I do not know if my earlier post got on or not, but it bothered me--I wrote about trying to find any small thing to be "grateful" for, e.g., that Stanley Williams had people he loves, who love him, during the execution. This could sound incredibly stupid, and for the sake of everyone who loves Mr. Williams, it really is important to offer a little elaboration.

This isn't a sedating gratitude, something that causes one to say, Well, it wasn't so bad, see? There were GOOD things going on, too! La di da!

For days after December 13th, I felt as if a black hole had opened up, and that it had a means by which it could seize us mentally. Christmas lights, oblivious shoppers, carols, were like things in a nightmare.

At this point I remembered some stories I had read of people who had faced situations such as sudden arrest by military police in countries where such things usually lead to disappearings; finding oneself in a concentration camp in NAZI Germany; fleeing for one's life in war-torn African countries. The stories involved each of these people finding something to be grateful for. Sometimes it was just, "The guard smiled when I made a joke." Or something like, "I was grateful for the little flowers that I could see just outside the barbed wire."

These people wroteabout these experiences because they felt that gratitude even for the smallest things in the worst situations had kept them from going mad, but more than that, had kept their resourcefulness and fighting spirit alive. (Each one survived his or her situation.)

When the notion came to me that, in the face of this seemingly implacable evil, I could do this, I felt angry. I was afraid it would merely sedate me. But I knew that the people in those prisons and concentration camps had not felt "sedated." They had not turned into smiling zombies in denial. Why not?

When I tried saying, "Stanley Williams had loved ones near him, and he could see them," at first the very fact that he had even been in that position almost wiped out whatever "gratitude" I was trying to feel, and the anger and grief came back.The reason I kept on was that I had to have faith in those other people's experiences. There was real power for them in their gratitude.

When Barbara Becnel said that having to see that execution was the worst experience of her life, I believe her. I did not even know Stanley Tookie Williams personally, though I signed the petition, e-mailed the governor, called his office. But anyone who recognizes real goodness and heroism in these times, and in this culture, could understand how Ms. Becnel must feel.

I would not want my earlier posting to be one of those idiotic silly things at any time, but least of all now, only a week after December 13. I don't care, for myself, about looking idiotic, but I do not want anyone close to Mr. Williams to feel faced with something that might sound inane.

That is why I want to make clear that the "gratitude" I posted about earlier has some kind of power, not inanity, to it, something I don't yet understand, myself, but that obviously has done amazing things for people in horrible situations.

In the backwash of December 13, we need amazing things.

Redemption or being redeemed is an open invitation to every male and female, regardless of their past or present lifestyle of God, within.

Stan Tookie Williams and Barbara Becnel, have highlighted to us all that God is colorless and omnipotent within.

Stan Tookie Williams having watched "Redemption" three times, reminded me of the thief or ganster on the Cross next to the Christ, that was given clemency and forgiveness, more than he could think or ask.

Redemption, is not a decision granted by politics or world, it granted only of Yahweh as God.

I urge every male and female to look within and ask God for redemption, truth, and peace.

There is alot to learn of spiritual truth, it is not color-coded, religious or denominational, nor are the original Ethiopic manuscripts of the Bible changeable or open to translations of heresy. (See Revelation Chapter 22: 19 KJV)

God is not in the business of votes and His universal Word still rules this universe.

Genocides of all kinds are notorious in the world, of every creed and color, that is why His Kingdom is not of this world.

Stanley Tookie Williams, did not create violence, he was a part of the violence of the world. The Mafia, Hitler, White Knights of Europe, KKK, and many other gangsters including Pharmaceutical companies of drugs and genocides are equally as guilty and involved in crime.

If you want redemption you have to understand that the Kingdom of God is not by observation or pagan beliefs of religion or denominations, it is only within. (See Luke 17: 21 KJV)

This is what Stanley Tookie Williams repented of and found and he had the last laugh of forgiveness and he is trying to share that with everyone.

Remember we all have an after-life for good or evil that is etenal of God.

What are you recording on your blank tape, CD, DVD, of good or evil in the now?

The CyberRev.com