society on the verge of a nervous breakdown

You know how people talk about the way religion gives them "peace?" Well, I was reading Lamentations 1 this morning for no good reason:

⁹ Those killed by the sword are better off
than those who die of famine;
racked with hunger, they waste away
for lack of food from the field.

¹⁰ With their own hands compassionate women
have cooked their own children,
who became their food
when my people were destroyed.

¹¹ The LORD has given full vent to his wrath;
he has poured out his fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion
that consumed her foundations.

I also found this news item, with a video that you can watch at KABC. My prurient interest in the lives of celebrities notwithstanding, these two things put together gave me a brief insight into the human psyche. Britney has apparently left a rehab center where she stayed for a day, shaved her head, and gotten a "dainty" tattoo on her wrist, which the local newslady helpfully recreated with a dash of tv magic and a little red lipstick.

Here's the thing about the fall of Jerusalem...

From Nebuchadrezzar's inscriptions and from the number of temples erected or restored by this prince we gather that he was a very devout man. What we know of his history shows him to have been of a humane disposition, in striking contrast with the display of wanton cruelty of most Assyrian rulers. It was due to this moderation that Jerusalem was spared repeatedly, and finally destroyed only when its destruction became a political necessity; rebel princes easily obtained pardon, and Zedekiah himself, whose ungratefulness to the Babylonian king was particularly odious, would, had he manifested less stubbornness, have been treated with greater indulgence (Jeremiah 38:17, 18); Nebuchadrezzar showed much consideration to Jeremiah, leaving him free to accompany the exiles to Babylon or to remain in Jerusalem, and appointing one of the Prophet's friends, Godolias, to the governorship of Jerusalem; he granted likewise such a share of freedom to the exiled Jews that some rose to a position of prominence at Court and Baruch thought it a duty to exhort his fellow-countrymen to have the welfare of Babylon at heart and to pray for her king.

Of course, it's always hard to have perspective when it is your own personal tragedy. Surely the suffering in Jerusalem upon its destruction was unbearable. However, how greatly had the mighty Assyrian empire suffered during the Chaldean sack of Nineveh, or how much had the Chaldeans suffered during their long subjugation by the Assyrians before?

Let's telescope out a little farther before it all comes together. Imagine an australopithecine wandering out on the Savannah scavenging a carcass for that last tasty marrow left in its bones. All of a sudden a lean, hungry saber-toothed cat jumps out and takes the small austalopithecine down. Helpless, defenseless, and bleeding to death, the australopithecine is mourned by her clan. However, to protect themselves, they move on back to the relative safety of the trees.

Human life and its attendant cultural and personal constructions are frail and weak. Without the perspective and collaboration of community, we are all at the brink of a psychological, physiological, or sociological disaster. Take Anna Nicole Smith, please. She never talked to her mother, discarded men easily, and found herself hooked to any number of pharmaceutical supplements.

We're all each other's got, and for some reason, we continually find ways to hurt each other. For instance take Nabonidus, the posthumous son-in-law of Nebuchadrezzer, after brutally overthrowing his immediate predecesser, Labashi-Marduk, he found himself in a spiritual and moral quandry. He wandered through the desert to Tayma, leaving his son Belshazzer? as regent, and spent the greater part of a decade worshipping the Moon and sorting out his issues. When he returned to Babylon, he found Cyrus the Great at the gates of his empire. After marching his army out to meet Cyrus, he eventually surrendered, and most believe he was either executed or died in captivity shortly thereafter.

I hope Nabonidus found what he was looking for. Life comes at you fast, of course, there's always blissful ignorance, as illustrated in this next clip. Thanks, TMZ.com, you make me feel a little less idiotic than I really am.