(no subject)
I still have no real excuse for still being behind - but getting there eventually
Thinking of mylodons post on the Roman soldiers I have been looking through the reports that made the news during the time that the British forces in Afghanistan were present.
There are distressing stories and sickening ones of soldiers committing acts unfitting to their service and of the punishments some received for such behaviour - but there are also stories of soldiers saving lives of Afghani children at cost to themselves and of barriers brought down. I suspect the Romans in Jesus day were also a mixed bunch - some of them exploitative and even evil intentioned and some generous, far sighted and open to all whom they can help.
which is yet another reminder of the ease with which particularly media reports but also all of us still can't escape the stereotyping which so often characterises people the lazy way= saint or sinner,angel or monster.. there are a few who fit those extreme profiles of course but most of humanity- including ourselves we would hope are somewhere inbetween -in that favourite phrase of mine from the Revd Eli Jenkins prayer in Under Milk Wood which I probably have used often ' we are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milkwood,
but thou I know wilt be the first, to see our best side, not our worst....
Thinking of mylodons post on the Roman soldiers I have been looking through the reports that made the news during the time that the British forces in Afghanistan were present.
There are distressing stories and sickening ones of soldiers committing acts unfitting to their service and of the punishments some received for such behaviour - but there are also stories of soldiers saving lives of Afghani children at cost to themselves and of barriers brought down. I suspect the Romans in Jesus day were also a mixed bunch - some of them exploitative and even evil intentioned and some generous, far sighted and open to all whom they can help.
which is yet another reminder of the ease with which particularly media reports but also all of us still can't escape the stereotyping which so often characterises people the lazy way= saint or sinner,angel or monster.. there are a few who fit those extreme profiles of course but most of humanity- including ourselves we would hope are somewhere inbetween -in that favourite phrase of mine from the Revd Eli Jenkins prayer in Under Milk Wood which I probably have used often ' we are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milkwood,
but thou I know wilt be the first, to see our best side, not our worst....