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The Flatland Chronicles for Monday, July 31.
Postings:
For today, these (in Versus):
Condemnation: The Easy Bit. Thoughts on the deaths at Qana. Later tempered as reflected in the note below; but an authentic reflection of my first response. I'm going to let it stand.
Plenty of Condemnation Left Over for Mel. Oh, Mel Gibson. What have you done? Otherwise, the same as before. First, my rush to judgment, then my attempt to control my revulsion.
The epiphany.
I had rather a rough day yesterday. I have been doing a lot of thinking about my particular approach to my life, as reflected in this blog. Going back through it, I have to say, I didn't really like the picture that emerges. Evidently I am in denial about the extent to which I manage to achieve my own noble "Christian" objectives. To be honest, I felt quite disgusted when I looked back over my writings for the last several months. Some of them are okay; and the more recent ones are more tempered and humorous than the earlier ones, but I still felt quite cast down.
Reading what's out there (and whatever it is, it ain't THE TRUTH, Mulder) really gets me down, at least as regards politics. It's so intemperate, so shrill. Look at what I wrote below, just as an example. Like the rest of humanity, I definitely need to shut up about other people till I've tried to stand in their (hypothetical) shoes.
Easy answers are never the right ones. It's so easy to get angry with the Israelis over the dead children which is all I could feel yesterday; what's hard is to allow myself to see things from their side of the fence (because I would prefer to believe they don't have a side). I still feel just as futilely angry, I'm afraid, but perhaps it would be more productive to direct it at the situation; and at the way that we all fail over and over to listen to each other----and worse, at the way we constantly dismiss or devalue other people's deepest concerns.
How many wars have been brought about by disrespect? I mean fundamentally as opposed to primarily. I suspect that the answer might be "all of them."
I still don't know what to do with the information that keeps coming in from Lebanon. It's hard to think about; and I suspect that my anger is masking other feelings I don't want to grapple with. It's not as if I am not part and parcel to equal damage to civilians, after all. (And I repeat: it is not really Bush's war; it's mine and everyone else's who thought---however briefly---that a preemptive war might be okay to eliminate a really scary threat to our sense of security.)
My friend Larry said last year that he found my tone "shrill" and that he was surprised that a person of my intelligence would engage, even as an exercise, in demonizing political or religious opponents, particularly since I'm complaining of the way that they demonize people on my side of the line.... Funny how I suddenly saw last night that he was right. I was setting up links within my blog as one of the many blog mavens advised, and the pattern of my postings really emerged for me in a way it never has before.
Even Mel Gibson, awful as his remarks were, needs (as opposed to deserves) our compassion. Imagine being in his place; imagine being caught out going on in that way. But all I felt when I heard about it was disgusted and furious.. In reality, people who are drunk, angry, and scared will come out with the foulest, most hurtful things they can (as I should know); it doesn't have to mean that they are revealing some secret truths. There are no secret truths, in reality; it's all in constant flux anyway.
But if someone needs compassion, we ought to give it to him. It's what we all want and need, particularly when we've been stupidly and unforgivably self-destructive.
Aghhh. I can't start over from scratch; I'll just have to start over here.
So now what do I do? And also: how? I feel I have something to expiate. Ugh, I hate this.
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