After decades, a News Sentinel reader makes a confession - and amends
What causes someone to spend the time, energy and money to seek forgiveness for a minor transgression after half a century?
This question has swirled around the Knox News newsroom ever since we received an anonymous letter in the mail a couple weeks ago.
The envelope containing the handwritten confession was stuffed with two $5 bills. The writer apologized profusely for an act they had done decades ago: Putting enough money in a newspaper box to pay for one copy, but reaching in and taking multiple copies.
The theft, though minor, haunted the reader: "I didn't do it often, but still I was wrong to do so. I am so ashamed of myself! Please forgive me!!"
The note mentioned that newspapers at the time cost about 10 to 15 cents per copy, so they sent $10 as reimbursement. With that knowledge, we searched through old newspapers to discover that the incident must have occurred sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, or five or six decades ago.
As we pondered the question of lasting guilt, we got in touch with Joseph Stratmann, a University of Tennessee assistant professor of modern philosophy, to get his thoughts.
"The great 18th century sage Immanuel Kant warns us that a human judge cannot see through the inner nature of other human beings (or, for that matter, even of themselves)," Stratmann wrote in an email to Knox News.
"But, I think, we may speculate. Despite having faced no outer tribunal for their theft, perhaps the person in this case was tormented by the inner tribunal of conscience. And perhaps the apology and repayment you received amounted to the restitution ordered by this inner tribunal, which this person (for some unknown reason) felt compelled to finally heed."
Stratmann speculates the action weighed so heavily in the offender's mind that they needed to pay for the papers they stole even though no one else would have known about the transgression.
To the writer, consider it water under the bridge. "We forgive you," said Joel Christopher, Knox News editor. "Let this lift from your conscience."
We put the money to good use by donating it to the News Sentinel Charities Empty Stocking Fund, our nonprofit that has provided holiday meals to neighbors in need for more than a century. The cash will help make a family's holiday a little brighter.
Anyone inspired to donate can make a tax-deductible gift any time of year at esfknox.org. Every dollar donated goes to the charitable effort, which is 100% volunteer run.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: A Knoxville News Sentinel reader confesses to stealing newspapers
