Killing

Mosquito squished on a  ceiling

Yesterday, I noticed a baby earwig on the tiled windowsill in our bathroom as I was having my morning shower. I got a piece of toilet paper and tempted her to climb aboard then very carefully put her outside. This morning a tiny spider was hanging from a gossamer thread, dangling below the showerhead. I moved him out through the window before I pressed the "on" button. It would have been awful if he had been washed down the plughole.

You see, I don't like killing any living creatures and try to avoid doing so. However, I must hold my hands up and admit that I do reluctantly kill garden slugs with slug pellets and when we were in Greece recently I killed a dozen mosquitoes that had found their way into our hotel room. My weapon of choice was a damp towel tied into a ball at the end which I fired at the ceiling with a deft yank of my wrist. It's okay - they would have felt nothing. It was all over quickly.

Like a Buddhist, I respect other living creatures and I would never kill a wasp or a even a fly. I am more likely to marvel at their flying skills and applaud their ability to  survive. 

As an omnivore I of course eat meat and fish but if I had to kill the unfortunate creatures that die for supermarkets or butchers' fridges I would probably walk away and become a vegetarian. I really do not like killing. The thought of it sickens me.

In Nice on Thursday night

And there is no way, no way at all that I could ever drive a heavy truck along a French promenade crowded with pedestrians. And carrying several deadly weapons, I could not blunder into a Florida nightclub frequented by gay people  -  intent on human slaughter. And I could not venture into the corridors of a Scottish primary school determined to kill other people's children with bullets or aim a crowded jet at a skyscraper or fire at holidaymakers on a Tunisian beach.

I would be held back by unbreakable but invisible reins, respecting the otherness of other human beings, sensing their fragility, their hopes and their dreams - knowing that they were all a bit like me and that our time on this earth is so precious and magical and brief. There's no cause, religious or otherwise that could ever turn me into an assassin of the innocent. And for this reason I am unable to project my thinking into the minds of the cowardly  killers who have been making the news this year - week in and week out. So much cruel and pointless slaughter. 

What kind of  beings are the perpetrators? Surely they are not human beings like you and me. They can't be. If it is wrong to kill a tiny spider hanging from a showerhead, it must be wrong to kill a complete stranger - someone you have never met who has never done you any harm. A son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a mother, a father, a husband, a wife, a friend - someone with stars in their eyes and hopes in their heart. The targets are not mosquitoes on a ceiling. They are unique people. They should be left alone and allowed to live, to see another dawn, another full moon. Nobody has  reason or right to slaughter them. No one.

Peace & Love