You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Guilt: A big topic. We can take little nibbles. We can be little fish taking little nibbles. We understand that everything we say is partial. To say one thing, we leave another out. But in addition to things we know but do not say, there is more that we do not know, that we are not yet able to think, things that have not yet swum into view, that have not yet crossed the thought horizon. Thus we speak humbly in face of the future, grateful to search for the little bit we can give. Saying this, you will understand that if I speak boldly, it is born of a pride of speech that is really a modest portion of the immensity that touches us.
We are all killers. Thus we are all guilty. We are all guilty killers. There is no way around it. We can not get out of it. We kill to live. We kill each other to live.
Killing is part of living. It is built into life. But like light refracts into so many colors, aliveness is alive with many tendencies and countertendencies, many emotional colors. We kill but are not just killers. We love, we are curious, we wonder, we explore, we drink life fully, we appreciate ourselves and each other, we appreciate the world. We care about life. We want to do life justice.
We are thus given a range of possibilities, including emotional possibilities. Isaac Baashevis Singer said, “God gave us so many emotions and such strong ones. Every human being, even