It's been two weeks since the incident that led to this post occurred. During those two weeks I have struggled to reconcile my feelings towards what happened and it has been difficult - God alone knows how hard it must be for the victim.
I have in turn fluctuated from simmering anger to all out rage coupled with frustration and feelings of helplessness. Some people seem to think that, as a Christian, I should forgive - but it is not my right to forgive those who perpetrated this hateful crime. That is between them, their God and their victim - I have no role to play in that process.
What has become apparent over the last few days is that my overwhelming emotion is guilt and shame.
Why guilt? After all, I didn't take part in this heinous act. No - but it is my generation that has allowed this country and our society to degenerate to such an extent that this sort of thing can happen in broad daylight and in front of witnesses - and is now so commonplace that it doesn't even warrant a mention in the local newspaper, although, as I hinted at before, there are other reasons why it is being kept quiet.
My generation is the current generation of power and we are going to have an awful lot to answer for when the history of our time is finally written. That we have taken an ordered, peaceful and moral society developed over hundreds of years and turned it into a hedonistic cesspool of vice, degeneracy and violence in the space of a generation is scarcely believable.
We've all heard stories of crimes and moral bankruptcy that have sickened and disgusted us - whether it be Baby P or greedy bankers - but people of my generation can shut ourselves away in our ivory towers and pretend that the world out there is somehow better than the one we inherited. It isn't.
My generation are not the ones who are suffering most from what we have wrought. The victims tend to be young and vulnerable or old and vulnerable. Occasionally, someone from my generation falls victim too - beaten to death by a feral gang of youths, but mostly it is the young and the old who have most to fear.
It is my generation that have allowed this situation to arise.
We are guilty. We should be ashamed.
2 comments:
Powerful stuff Stan. I understand what you're saying but on the other hand what are normal people who just trying to get on with their lives supposed to do?
As a fellow Christian, Stan, I totally understand your anger, and (so far) inability to feel the nice, easy, lovey-dovey feelings of "peace and forgiveness, man".
No-one ever said (certainly not Christ) that it would be easy, or that you must issue your forgiveness immediately, without going through the normal timeframe of bitterness, loss, and so on. That's just natural, so don't tear yourself up about it.
However, in the long run I disagree with you: Although you are not the immediate victim of this crime, yet you feel hurt by it, therefore you ARE a party to the whole "forgiveness" issue, in that you (in time) have to forgive the harm that this has done to your peace of mind. The question is, HOW to forgive? What are the essential grounds by which you can eventually come to forgive?
I think our reluctance to forgive others for the wrongs they do us, basically stems from our idea that "we own ourselves". You feel that someone has robbed you of the peace of mind, or perhaps the ownership/security of that which you felt was YOURS.
I really don't mean to come across as condescending or patronising, but perhaps the "trick" is to realise that nothing we have is really "ours" in this life. All belongs to God. The person who was violated by this awful crime belongs to God, and God has allowed a bad thing to happen to them, but get this; with the intention of eventually bringing something good from it, both for them and for you too. You're a decent chap, Stan, and I think you will get a lot of good out of all this, in the fullness of time.
Meanwhile, on a political level, you are completely right to lambast the "way the country is going", in general terms. There is a huge lot to be angry about. I would like to say some more about your idea about restoring Christian values to the UK, but perhaps I've said enough for now.
Wishing you and your family all the very best.
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