It’s easy for me to get worked up about stupid people. Or those who don’t follow the rules. Or those who slap their children. You know who I’m talking about. Those people. They make us mad when they cut in front of us in traffic or have yelling matches with their kids in the front yard. Don’t they have any decency?
I was cleaning my car last Friday evening and saw a yelling match between a mother and her preteen son. Well, I heard a yelling match is more like it. All the same, it went on forever. Apparently, he tried to hurry his little sister out of the car. Sisters don’t like to be hurried, so she did what comes natural, she fought back. Chaos! Evil sisters. It ends up, sister runs and tells Momma what her evil brother did. Evil brothers. This I know because Momma declared it so, quite loudly. “Boy, is it true what your sister just told me?” Mmmm…boy mumbles something. Evil Mommas? I won’t bore you with the entire episode but wouldn’t it have been easier to take a reasonable action and not talk the child to death? I would have appreciated it.
We have things we vilify. They can be political parties or races of people. Most usually we aren’t aware of who they are until they are in our face, like the lady above. The more strongly I feel about something the more I’m going to use it as my scapegoat about why I can’t be happy. In my situation, it would have been wrong to get in the middle of the squabble, but listening to the triad squabble was uncomfortable.
So this week I’m trying to look at these questions:
- In what demonic structures do I take part? Religious, cultural, style?
- Who is my scapegoat? Who do I blame? Government, co-workers, neighbors?
- Am I trying to be a part of a community that vilifies? Organizations, belief systems, online groups?
If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly recommend listening to Peter Rollins, The Virtual Reality of Demons.
See also There’s Always An Outside from the last post.
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