Crazies

[fpb]

This is the second time in 24 hours that would-be terrorists try to kill considerable numbers of British civilians. And do not think I am not taking it seriously. It is not nice to know that people who live in our community want us dead. But it is comforting to reflect that, as far as realization goes, and in spite of what seems to have been a careful study of mass murder methods, the actual work in both cases seems to have been strictly Amateur Hour. The IRA managed to make trouble for Britain for decades because they were a group of experienced and trained killers. These gentlemen just seem to decide to go on a murder spree one day when they feel particularly pissed off. As long as they remain so amateurish, they will go on making maximum effort for minimum result.

Comments

[avus.livejournal.com]

I would be suprised were any religion, any genuine manifestation of our spiritual dimension, our inborn yearning for God, able to become either only corporate-ized or only hateful. I'd like to think, and in my work, sometimes I can actually find something more than that. Which is not to say that, on finding it, I'm necessarily successful at nurturing it. But finding it is still a step, and an important one. ANd I would never think that somehow I had either sole responsibility or even ability to grow this.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I wish I agreed. Remember, C.S.Lewis pointed out in The Screwtape Letters that it is just the highest features of human life and spirit which can, when corrupted, produce the worst sins.

[avus.livejournal.com]

Ah, dear fpb, I believe that you, and Lewis, are both right & not right. (It's been years since I've read The Screwtape Letters.) That I can find that inborn yearning doesn't mean that I could not also find that to which you refer, its corruption.

(By the way, TS Eliot, in "Murder in the Cathedral", points to this in the last of temptation sequence of St. Thomas. As I recall, St. Thomas then says,

"The last is then the greatest treason,
To do the right thing for the wrong reason."

Or something like that. But even a casual & primitive knowledge of history, or one's local church, can produce that understanding.

And yet without that which, assuredly, can become perverted, something not only divine, but fundamentally human & humane is even farther away.

So perhaps we don't disagree entirely. And I suspect we certainly agree that, as part of our earthly duties, to find and, such as we're able, to nourish that is a fundamental healing we owe others & ourselves.

Wishing you all good things,

avus