Byzantine Blog
Probably the only vaguely interesting thing about me is that with my wife, Mary Reed, I co-author a mystery series set in sixth century Constantinople featuring as detective, John Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian. But that doesn't stop me from dwelling here on the boring minutiae of the rest of my life, present and past, along with the occasional word about writing.
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There is no pleasure to me without communication:
there is not so much as a sprightly thought comes into my mind
that it does not grieve me to have produced alone,
and that I have no one to tell it to.
--Michel de Montaigne
Should We Give Thanks?
I feel the same unease when I hear someone who has survived a disaster thanking God for their salvation. What gives that person the idea, I wonder, that God decided to save him or her while letting another human being die? It strikes me as an amazing conceit. Is there any empirical evidence that the people who die in natural disasters are less devout than those who are "saved"?
I believe that during our lives we deal with the world as it is, with the mindless natural forces that are part of the world and with the consequences of human actions. I don't believe in a God who is busily putting turkeys on American plates while seeing to it that African children starve, or a God who reaches down to pluck true believers from burning buildings while others perish. It is up to us to make the best of this place while we are here. In fact, one might say, that is the whole point of the exercise.
If there is some ultimate justice it is not to be found in this world, but elsewhere.
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