Manchester horror

What's to say? In one sense, nothing. I guess people grieve, pray, meditate - and where we can, work hard to help all affected.

The ultimate objective compassion would be to try to understand and forgive the man who did this. (News reports either know or assume it was a male.)

Perhaps it's particularly hard to do so because he deliberately targeted children.

Presumably he was a deluded psychopath.

I think I can just about manage not to see him only as a murderous shitsmear who unfortunately didn't blow himself up assembling his murderous device. He was some mother's son.

I think I can just about manage not to think of anyone who helped him (if anyone did) as deserving instant death. Yes, I can let go of murderous intentions towards such people, and merely hope they are very swiftly detained and rendered harmless.

I can even let go of dark thoughts about the blowhards who say something along the lines of "well, if we bomb other countries, support tyrannies and sell them arms, what can we expect? Syrian children die all the time," though I can't help wishing they were made to clear up the blood and broken glass to make them see the reality of what they are so self-righteously dismissing. I mean, what (excuse me) fucking use are such comparisons? A murdered child is a murdered child - anywhere, everywhere.

I can take heart at how well "ordinary" people respond, (let me know if you meet an "ordinary" person, I don't know any such,) and how fast, efficient and brave the emergency services and the police are, faced with such events. (It's only in hindsight that we know there wasn't a second bomb about to go off...)

I'll have to see what I can do in my own mind to reach a wider, more useful sense of compassion. 

I hope all this doesn't just sound like navel-gazing amongst the pain - I think it's worth investigating one's own responses - how about yours? 

But then I think of parents who dropped their children off at a gig, and found out a few hours later that they were blown into pieces.

Forgiveness? Maybe not yet. Maybe not ever, in truth. 

Compassion, in a more general sense? Worth working on. Always.