March 18, 1994

"Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
                                           Friedrich Nietzsche

I woke up this morning thinking of plays. Although I have only seen a few plays in my life, I have read many plays. In the play, No Exit, Jean Paul Satre writes about a man and two women sentenced to hell - their punishment is that they to be confined together for eternity. The message of the play is that hell isn't fire and brimstone, but that hell is other people. In his play, The Cocktail Party, T.S. Eliot writes, "Half the harm done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. The other half by people who want to feel power."

Most of the pain and suffering, fear and hopelessness in this world is not caused by disease, famine and natural disasters, it is caused by people deliberately hurting and killing others - through tribal genocide, religious wars and ethnic hatreds.Only God knows how many innocent people have been injured and killed by those who believed God was on their side. People with power seem to have an animalistic urge to inflict pain and punishment on those weaker than themselves. Maybe this is some form of evolutionary protectionism, like Darwin's survival of the strongest. But I have come to believe it is more basic than that, simply, there is a dangerous dark side of the human spirir that finds pleasure in an other's pain.

I am dreadfully depressed this morning, for I am leaving the comforts of Saint Augustine for Melbourne Beach. Although I've been here only a week, it has the feeling of home and I don't want to leave.

At this morning's Mass the response was, "The Lord is near broken hearts." But I do not feel Him, nor see Him, nor hear Him. Yet I hope He hears me and will soon help me and heal my broken heart. The priest said, "God expects us to suffer pain and alienation." I'm sure He does. But does He expect certain people to find joy in my suffering and pain? I believe it saddens Him.

Yes, hell is other people. And there are some people who not only enjoy nailing someone to the cross, but they enjoy, even more, keeping him there and pounding the nails in deeper every time they come loose.

9:30am   -   Monterey Inn   -   Saint Augustine, Florida

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