[Magdalen] whose theology is this?

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

Neither Marge nor I was thinking of -- whatever facebook site you are
trying to talk about.

I know a lady who has been concerned about feral cats near where I worked.
So she got some traps and started bringing them to the SPCA who neutered
them, and then she found alternate locations for them.  I helped her for a
while with this project.  This entire enterprise was one woman and her Fit.
SPCA loaned her have-a-heart traps.

You see the hopelessness of the situation and you assume it's hopeless!
Give it up!

I'm reminded of the man who went walking early in the morning on a beach
and saw a small figure in the distance -- doing what?
As he got nearer, he could see the other was picking things up and throwing
them into the sea.
Arriving at the same point on the beach, he saw a small child, picking up
starfish and throwing them out into the surf.
It had been stormy, and starfish littered the shoreline.
"What are you doing?" the man inquired.
"Rescuing these starfish," replied the child.  "If they stay where they are
now, they'll die."
The man looked up and down the beach, and said, "But there are so many.
What good does it do to throw a few back?"
The child just kept throwing the starfish back, one at a time.
"There must be a million starfish here!" the man exclaimed.  Surely the
child just wasn't thinking. "Even if you stay here all day -- what possible
difference can it make?" he was now practically shouting with exasperation.
The child reached for another starfish, looked at the man for a moment, and
then threw the starfish far out beyond the surf.
"I bet it made a difference to that one," the child said.

Now in the world, we have basic assumptions. One seems to be that people
are basically good or evil.

If you assume that the world is crap and most people are evil, then in this
story, they knock it off and go have a beer.

If you assume that most people are not THAT bad, and would do good if only
they thought it through, then the story has another ending:

Looking down that beach, you see two figures walking away, one taller than
the other, stooping down every second or so and throwing something -- what
could it be? -- far out into the sea.



James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, Mar 3, 2015 at 2:43 PM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> From: James Oppenheimer-Crawford
>
>  You know, Jim, you can be a repository of good information, and I know
>> that
>> you find it annoying when folks say things you do not happen to agree
>> with,
>> and I am sorry you find that annoying, but when you blow hot air, it's
>> also
>> annoying.
>>
>
> One of the great modern petition sites is Facebook (as well as other
> Social Media). What people don’t know is that these petitions nearly always
> go nowhere. They are used for deep data-mining of the responder and any of
> his/her friends.
>
> It's fascinating to see people think that their participating in one of
> these data-mining ventures seems real pleased when their POV comes true.
> But it's more like blaming firefighters for fires because they seem always
> to be there when there is one.
>
> It's money that wins in today's America.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim Guthrie
>