Monsters are People Too
So woops! It's been weeks. I know, I know. I have not blogged in ages. I don't know if I'm even going to keep this blog thing going. It's just too much work! lol. So I'm lazy. Or then there's just alot going on in my life. Or maybe it's a little of both. But today I did have something to say, so here I am.
I was looking at some photos online that were taken at Auschwitz back during World War 2. These aren't the usual pictures, of tortured and emaciated prisoners. Nope. These were pictures of the people who worked at the camp. And what struck me so fiercely is how human they looked. People just like me, laughing, having fun, lazing around in the sun, playing with a pet dog, having a picnic, even singing in a choir and lighting the candles on a Christmas tree. And I thought, how could those monsters look so normal?
And then the words...just like me...ran through my mind again. People just like me. No, I never enslaved a particular group of people just because a madman who called himself my leader said they were evil. And no, I didn't work in a place that enslaved innocent people. But under the right circumstances, I could have.
Human nature has a great capacity for good things. On the same site was an article about a woman whose daughter wanted children, but found out she doesn't have a uterus. So the mother--er grandmother--is lending her uterus to her daughter. Having her twin grandbabies in her daughter's stead. Pretty amazing that a woman of that age would risk her life like that. And pretty amazing that medicine has evolved to that degree that it's even possible.
But human nature is also highly capable of incredible cruelty. Auschwitz. 'Nough said. As for this human, I cringe to think I might be capable of doing the things to other human beings that were done to the inmates at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. But I'm very aware--painfully so--that it's not any innate goodness in me that makes me feel that way. It's only by the grace of God, and His Spirit living in me that I am not like those people.
I don't have to go back too far to find in my own attitudes the same kind of hatred the Nazis felt for the Jews. It was a day that most remember, and probably will for the rest of their lives. September 11, 2001. Given the opportunity, I could have been a monster to those people who attacked the United States.
I was looking at some photos online that were taken at Auschwitz back during World War 2. These aren't the usual pictures, of tortured and emaciated prisoners. Nope. These were pictures of the people who worked at the camp. And what struck me so fiercely is how human they looked. People just like me, laughing, having fun, lazing around in the sun, playing with a pet dog, having a picnic, even singing in a choir and lighting the candles on a Christmas tree. And I thought, how could those monsters look so normal?
And then the words...just like me...ran through my mind again. People just like me. No, I never enslaved a particular group of people just because a madman who called himself my leader said they were evil. And no, I didn't work in a place that enslaved innocent people. But under the right circumstances, I could have.
Human nature has a great capacity for good things. On the same site was an article about a woman whose daughter wanted children, but found out she doesn't have a uterus. So the mother--er grandmother--is lending her uterus to her daughter. Having her twin grandbabies in her daughter's stead. Pretty amazing that a woman of that age would risk her life like that. And pretty amazing that medicine has evolved to that degree that it's even possible.
But human nature is also highly capable of incredible cruelty. Auschwitz. 'Nough said. As for this human, I cringe to think I might be capable of doing the things to other human beings that were done to the inmates at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. But I'm very aware--painfully so--that it's not any innate goodness in me that makes me feel that way. It's only by the grace of God, and His Spirit living in me that I am not like those people.
I don't have to go back too far to find in my own attitudes the same kind of hatred the Nazis felt for the Jews. It was a day that most remember, and probably will for the rest of their lives. September 11, 2001. Given the opportunity, I could have been a monster to those people who attacked the United States.
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