We live in a culture of blame, accountability and compensation. A head may roll, but usually it's the wrong one. In a kind of mad mathematics we apply money to relieve the human carnage wrought. It's not a perfect system – but it is something. And we may feel, infinitely better than the lynch mob presented to stone a woman in the Gospel.
But underneath, are we so superior? In Western Culture, we can talk about any topic, but only in boringly politically correct terms. So, while we are mostly nice to people, respectful to colleagues, law-abiding, not committing adultery, or using drugs, we seem to only see ourselves as “cursing and swearing.” Look deeper to where you harbour bitterness, hoard your time, resent intrusion, where you're vain and self-obsessed, fretting of how others see you. Is our act more spiritual than we really are? Haven't we all strayed with our eyes and heart – if not our body? We are all like that unnamed woman in the Gospel, a mess in the dust, before the baying hound that is our own conscience or the judgement of others.
Our only hope is as that song might have put it, that “He” will raise us up. There is a wideness and a wildness in God's mercy and he will raise us up to something infinitely better.
(Comments to Tom at tomascox@eircom.net )