Walking With Penguins

This is inspired by na's post.

A few weeks ago I visited the dreaded cult-buster site once again. A couple of years before I'd been posting on it for a while, and had to quit. Too stressful. Also, the Inquiry was getting under way, and so things were happening. But then the Report was published and ... nothing. So I returned to the site, and started to post once more.

Some opening comments met with a mixed response. Some were welcoming, others suspicious. One or two were openly hostile. I almost threw in the towel again, but kept on with it. Measuring every word, taking care to say nothing that would rub salt into open wounds. Some of the aggressive responses melted away when met with humour. Others became friendly. One or two shadowy figures seemed more sinister, but I learned how to see them off. It became a kind of obsession, a ritual of contrition. Oddly enough, it was contrition for sins I had never, so far as I knew, committed.

After a fortnight of this, I was sitting at my computer one morning writing a personal message to one of the regulars when I was overcome with the sadness of the whole situation. For the children of St James and St Vedast, for the staff who had been led into error, for the School and everyone in it. I started to weep silently. My daughter came in and a few minutes later I had to drive her to school. I was feeling very tender towards her, and towards everything. As she got out of the car I wanted to say something, "Goodbye, darling." For me, this is unusual - I don't find terms of endearment easy. She flashed a beautiful smile at me - and it struck me how unusual that is too.

I felt strangely cleansed all that day. Everything and everyone seemed precious, and demanded my loving attention. There was that quiet, calm feeling that sometimes prevails at the end of a particularly challenging philosophy week. Perhaps this is a way for all of us to address our personal hard-heartedness.

There must be a way for us to make atonement. What with Easter being so soon.