Yesterday, not having words of my own, I posted there the poem by John Donne. At the same time everyone else on the thread was posting who was in London, and where they were, and how they felt when they found loved ones were safe. I couldn't do that kind of thing in public even if I had friends or loved ones there; it was a rather tasteless parading of 'how close did I come to being bereaved'. Bizarre.
In response I have had several messages which I can only describe as vitriolic, calling me crass, unfeeling, arrogant; you name it.
October, the way people react in a crisis often [not always] shows what kind of people they really are.
These folks were thinking only of themselves. Only of people who mattered to them directly. So... without meaning to do it, you held a mirror up to their essential selfishness, and they projected their garbage all over you. You weren't posting Donne to 'show them up', you were posting it because it showed solidarity with all those who
were bereaved, or for whom that bell
did toll... I am sorry to be indelicate, but you basically interrupted a group wankfest, and pointed out - by your example of thinking of others - that this is what was going on.
Again, that wasn't your intention, but...
A town fellow was visiting his country cousin, who owned both a pig farm and an apple orchard. On the day he arrived, he found his cousin out in the orchard, with the pigs. The pigs had eaten all of the windfall apples, and the farming cousin was carefully picking up first one pig, then another, holding them up to the lower branches and letting them eat the low-hanging ripe fruit.
the town fellow scratched his head and said, 'what on earth are you doing?'
'feeding the pigs some apples', said his country cousin.
'doesn't it take a lot of time, doing it that way?' asked the townie.
'Shoot,' said his cousin. 'What's time to a pig?'
Mat 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.
