Thunderstruck


Dear Eugene,

What makes a life comfortable?

I don't need to speak about the obvious elements.  One aspect, though, is rarely, if ever, enunciated until its being undermined triggers inevitably the domino undermining of all other elements: moral comfort.

Moral comfort: not feeling uncomfortable about feeling comfortable.  Not feeling bad for feeling good.

Now say if I know my having a fabulous Christmas means someone needs to die for it, even if I so wanted and successfully executed a contracting out of my responsibility to someone or something else, when judgement day comes--as my nightly bad dreams keep reminding me--I will need to say, Yes, I knew it all along, and Yes, you caught me.

And for that, I might be living a very comfortable life and having very comforting expectations of my Christmas, there is a discomfort in me that I can't quite kill.  I might need to redouble my efforts and kill something or someone else to cover up my first killing(s).   There's always a hitherto unidentified gap or crack to seal up in my moral vacuum.

Who knows, judgement might come on December 25.

For some reason that sorry little baby in the manger tells me he might do just that, that he is not as meek and mild as what even churches make him out to be.  That my turning my back on the discomfort in my heart and chaos of the world will be judged mightily, by the one who speaks through the cry of a dispossessed infant refugee in a voice of thunder.

The last thing we will have on Christmas day is peace.

Yours, Alex

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