Is it fairness in the distribution of society’s benefits and burdens? Is it proportionate suffering for the crime committed? Is it making restitution for the wrongs done to others?

An excerpt from Plato’s Republic provides a spiritual answer. A just person is at peace with himself because he pays attention to the inner “true” self. 

Justice comes from within, yet I never expected my backyard would teach me how to look inward for answers. The lesson started with an apple tree.

I had started an apple tree from seed and kept it inside during winter. After winter, I placed the pot with my tiny apple tree in the back of the house.

One morning I went outside to water the tree but noticed something was wrong. The tree was on its side with most of its bark gone. What might have been responsible for destroying my plant?

Then a rabbit hopped through my yard, and I realized how my apple tree was destroyed. How silly of me to allow the rabbits to invade my space.

As spring progressed, the grass in my yard became greener and denser and I intended to keep it that way throughout the warm season. However, the increasing number of holes in the ground made mowing bumpy. What was creating all these holes? I found out that rabbits were responsible for the holes and creating bare patches in my lawn.

I became angry and less patient with the rabbits.

I tried to convince myself that all was OK and that rabbits will do what rabbits do. But the desire to prevent the rabbits from coming into my yard grew stronger. I felt even more frustrated with my unsuccessful attempts to throw shoes at the rabbits to scare them away. They just didn’t seem to care much. I knew I had to do something more drastic to fix the problem.

My decision involved erecting a chicken-wire fence halfway up the wooden fence. It worked! The grass grew dense and the annoying bare patches disappeared. The holes in the ground had also been less noticeable. I felt victorious for keeping rabbits off my property. They’re just terrible creatures and must be controlled.

Then came the opportunity that helped me realize the rabbits’ innocence as a species.

I was mowing the grass one day, when I witnessed something that looked like a big mouse emerging from the ground but flipped like a fish out of the water. I stopped the lawnmower. I was frightened. I caught my breath and looked closer and noticed the creature was a baby rabbit, gasping its last breath.

My lawnmower killed the baby rabbit. I killed the baby rabbit!

I felt sad. The rabbits I was fighting off my property were coming to the backyard for food and a place to nurture their offspring. But up until that moment of witnessing the dying baby rabbit, I had seen things differently. I had focused on seeing the rabbits as a problem, and that made me more upset. Even though I realized that it was OK to protect my plants from being destroyed by rabbits, I didn’t have to wish all rabbits to be destroyed.

Today I’m thinking about my experience with the rabbits in the face of this moment in our nation’s history. It's like our nation is a home and we’re the homeowners trying to eradicate each other to protect the same home. We accuse each of cheating in elections. We see migrants as threats to our ways of life. We see each other as preventers of our individual rights. We fear each other because we’ve lost trust in one another. 

Such intolerance leads us to labeling each other as liberals and dangerous or as conservative and hateful. When we do that we build fences that divide and keep those we dislike out of our lives. But like rabbits seeking food and a place to nurture their young, at the core of each of us, we are all seeking to be OK in life.

We desire to advance ourselves to be able to realize the American dream. We seek communities where we can be accepted and find safety in expressing who we are as individuals. We care about our families and want to protect them from harm.

At the core of each person there’s a desire to avoid suffering and seek joy. We are all pursuing the same goal in life.Understanding this truth about our humanness can help us learn how to be compassionate. This is an important lesson as our nation charts the dark and muddy waters of political turmoil.

To bring about peace is to look inside for compassion. Compassion enables the form of justice which 20th century American philosopher John Rawls explained in his Theory of Justice. 

“Make the worst off as well off as possible.”

Walter Suza of Ames, Iowa, writes frequently on the intersections of spirituality, anti-racism and social justice. He can be contacted at wsuza2020@gmail.com. A version of this piece previously appeared in the Iowa State Daily.