where kindness takes a holiday

I once heard that there was a perfectly legitimate Christian prayer that went, "Dear Lord, please give him/her/them a swift kick in the ass." Usually, of course, spiritual persuasions are dolloped with things like "compassion." No one, least of all monks, nuns and other disciples, ever gets pissed.

And yet they do get pissed. They get enraged. Suddenly, a situation is just too fucking much. And no one is more confused/embarrassed/ashamed than the disciple himself ... and still s/he's pissed.

Yesterday, a Zen Buddhist monk friend sent me an article that had purely enraged him. And when I read it, I could see why. Cruelty masquerading as goodness and even temper is enough to make you puke. Take your "compassion" and shove it up your ass!

The article in question wove together a water crisis in Flint, Michigan -- one in which dangerous levels of lead had been introduced into the public drinking water -- and the treatment of Palestinians by Israel. In both instances, everyone has excuses and explanations and still, children and families are being negatively affected by a public policy that is mindlessly cruel to those who have little or no recourse.

Flint uses budget difficulties to excuse its behavior. Israel uses "anti-Semitism" (as if Palestinians were not Semites) as its cover story. A country that loves to recall the horror of the Nazi Holocaust sees no reason to look in the mirror and recoil.

Dear Lord, please give him/her/them a swift kick in the ass! Cut the "anti-Semitism" crap! Cruelty -- by either the well-heeled or the poorly shod -- is cruelty ... period. "Everyone does it" is a refuge of jackals and jerk-offs.

It's all enough to make even the most kindly-inclined see the virtue of Islamic State's twisted-sister version of Islam.