Some Thoughts

Now it is feeling like Spring. We have a set of very nice tomato plants sitting on the window sill, rain everyday, the world a riot with purple, Dandelions already to seed, and grass growing faster than one can mow. I have been busy working through 18th century Asylum publications. Of particular interest is an Asylum Literary Magazine from the 1850s. My attention was caught in particular by one article in which the patient viewed the Asylum in light of the New Testament command that if you find yourself persecuted by a city--flee!
Augustine once commented: "Crazy people say and do many incongruous things, things for the most part alien to their intentions and characters, certainly contrary to their good intentions and characters; and when we think about their words and actions, or see them with our eyes, we can scarcely—or possibly we cannot at all—restrain our tears, if we consider their situation as it deserves to be considered." St. Augustine, City of God.

I am hoping that in my work I am capturing some of the pathos and tragedy that Augustine grasps in this selection. Doug is working with such issue in a visceral way as a street pastor with Lazarus Rising. Perhaps, one of us will eventually be able to articulate our thoughts on these matters. For now, we are left a little shy of Augustine's tears, yet still touched by sadness.