Outrage

Sorry I cannot credit this picture, author unknown

I am outraged. About a hundred times a day about all sorts of things from the petty, like the package that arrives straitjacketed by sellotape and takes me ten minutes to open, to that dreadful killing in London yesterday.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk 

I can get very outraged in sitations that affect, or have affected me or my family directly - issues about adoption, disablility, Cystic Fibrosis. Like the situation at school this week when my son was told he couldn't use the disabled loo (the school deny this, but it is about what he believes he was told) That one got sorted. Apparently he can use it. Or about big issues, eg situations where it seems obvious to me that the Government is being manipulated by large companies in to making very poor decisions. Can I / should I do anything about it?

Yes I should, but HOW? And where to start? In the case of the sellotape, with a pair of scissors obviously and maybe some feedback to the sender asking them to consider how someone with arthriticky fingers is supposed to get into their parcels. In the case of school a polite email did the trick.

In the case of the Woolwich killing, I'm sure I'm not alone in being left with a lot of angry feelings and nowhere to direct them I wasn't there to help, I am not sure whether the media going over it and over it again and again will help. I am happy to sign petitions, to stand up and be counted as opposing such evil; but how can I fight it? In this case I cannot yet give an answer. I want to act, but only in a positive way.

One of the Woolwich killers is on record as saying - with his hands covered in blood  -"We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

the killer speaks

I've got a quote on my wall that I found hilarious as a student, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A fair rapid and satisfying way to an eyeless toothless world"  Yes - when no-one can see or eat there will be no more killing. And there'll be perfect peace - eventually.

 There has to be a better answer than vengeance. Not just revenge taken by those men that attacked an innocent young man who was minding his own business, but the sort of vengeance that attacks a country because there may be terrorists lurking there. We all need to learn forgiveness. Forgiveness for real and imagined injury. And I want to act to help the injured, and I don't want to fight.