Good morning, SDAI--

May I call you "S"?

A couple of years ago, a woman who belongs to the Unitarian church in the city wrote a letter to the editor criticizing the elderly for being old, in the way and generally a drag on the rest of us. She made exceptions for "exceptional people", that is, the elderly who didn't seem old to her, but rather, venerable. The noble elderly. As you might expect, the reaction in the letters column was extensive, offended and downright angry. I know this woman and wondered what she was up to, because it sounded atypical. She wrote back a week later and explained that she had a bet going with some of the people she has coffee with concerning the reaction if she submitted that letter, and she was happy to see that no one had disappointed her. She went on to say that it might be instructive if all of us looked at our other stereotypes with this memory fresh in our minds to see if the "defense of the elderly" episode would shed new light on other forms of bigotry based on physical appearance, ability, culture or income.

It seems you got me. LOL! I should have known better.

I have been paying attention to your beliefs, and am still waiting to see whether you intend to apply explicitly the karmic justice theme of some of your other posts to the 6,000+ individuals in the WTC and the Pentagon. We disagree on (at least) one very important point: you don't believe in fundamental innocence and I do. I see an inherent danger in the idea that those who suffer as a result of injustice, cruelty or perversion have somehow done something in a past life to deserve it. If they suffer because of their past behavior, then this is no more than justice, and those of us who witness it can feel free to be less constrained to stop the suffering or heal the resulting injuries. This thought is fingernails scraped across my psychic chalkboard. It makes me want to put mittens on you and staple them to your wrists, but of course, you too have your First Amendment rights.

Re: British caravans in 1931: A lot of colonized people shot at the colonizers. I recall a bunch of upstarts in North America in the 1770s. Today they would be characterized as terrorists in the British press, freedom fighters in the Patriot press, and ne'er-do-well embarrassments in the Tory press. Come to think of it, they were so characterized then too. The names have been changed, is all.

Fighting people who have taken or are trying to take possession of your country is one thing. Going to another country and killing people to get even, get the attention of their government, cripple their national spirit, or whatever, is very different.

Also (going back to the post that made me so mad I couldn't even formulate a response): the Huns have gotten a bad rap, as have other groups used to frighten children into good behavior. (The Iroquois served that purpose in my community, compounded,in my family, by the fact that they allied themselves with the English, who also wanted to kill us.) Sure they pillaged. Most armies do. Attila, to his credit, met with Pope Gregory the Great outside Rome. After that meeting, Attila spared the city. I was raised to believe that this happened because Gregory was a great leader. It only occurred to me much later that it happened because Attila was too.

History is a funny kind of mirror. We look in it and see ourselves in fancy dress.

I was a pumpkinhead this Hallowe'en. What kind of fancy dress had you? ;)

Regards--
Mary Anne