Friday, June 22, 2007

I think probably few, if any, will read this but I guess I'm not worried. This is just Abby, getting her 1am thoughts out there. I realize that 1am is the time when my mind turns the most, likely because my body is finally at rest. So here it is...
I've just begun to read an old book by a man named Leo Tolstoy called
The Kingdom of God is Within You. Tolstoy was a contemporary of Gandhi and record has it that Gandhi referred to himself as being a disciple of Tolstoy.
I know people who support the war(s), people who believe Jesus would be doing the same, but it's really hard for me to reconcile a Jesus who said to love your enemies (and turn the other cheek) with the one who goes across the world to hurt others because they hurt him. It just doesn't click with me for some reason.
A difficult thought:
"One man may not kill. If he kills a fellow-creature, he is a murderer. If two, ten, a hundred men may do so , they too are murderers. But a government or a nation may kill as many men as it chooses, and that will not be murder, but a great and noble action. Only gather the people together on a large scale, and a battle of ten thousand men becomes an innocent action. But precisely how many people must there be to make it so?- that is the question. One man cannot plunder and pillage, but a whole nation can. But precisely how many are needed to make it permissible? Why is it that one man, ten, a hundred, may not break the law of God, but a great number may?"

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