Humanize the Enemy

We may take actions which we don't like, but we should always portray friend and enemy as alike having a human face.

Introduction to this work

In the Orthodox Church, the day after something great is celebrated, we remember those that made it possible. Hence the day after the celebration of the Annunciation, we remember the Archangel Gabriel.

This substack came together most immediately after a conversation on another substack where two people both said that I had something to say and I cared about it deeply, and encouraged me to start writing a substack.

So I am posting this as the original concern that led to my having a substack.

Humanize the Enemy

“How many men does it take to defend Paris?—Nobody knows. It’s never been tried!” - told by my then-curate when France had made itself politically unpopular again.

I was involved in one discussion about various aspects of the conflicts in the holy land, and one person posted about a disabled person, giving a picture of him in his wheelchair and giving him a name, before talking about the carnage when he was murdered among other Israeli Jews celebrating Sukkot.

I collected together my contributions to that conversation, and was going to post it, but it came together as too haphazard, not a coherent post in itself. However, I would like to stitch together what was of merit in what I said.

The movie Four Weddings and a Funeral (one friend said he knew it would pack a nasty whallop when he heard how highly it was praised) has a happy ending, of sorts, that hinges on a bride being betrayed by her groom, publicly jilted at the altar. And very interestingly, we don’t know the bride’s name. Her name is presumably under the strategically placed flowers in front of her wedding invitation, but it is completely blocked out and not even a part of one letter was clear to be seen. And her face was never shown. The closest was her turned-away head after she slapped him.