Last night I ran over a cat.
There was nothing I could do as it dashed into the road and under the wheels of my car.
I pulled over, shaken and upset, and was relieved to find that the poor thing was at least alive and limping off the road to hide in a doorway. We managed to locate the neighbour and I just hope that the vet has been able to set her to rights, fix any broken bones and relieve some of the pain and shock.
I may not be a great cat-lover, but I really wouldn’t wish such suffering on any innocent creature. So it was somewhat pertinent that my meditations this morning brought me to Psalm 73:
‘All in vain I have kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.’
Over recent years I have found myself increasingly trying to walk a road of non-violence – to embrace Gandhi’s principles of Satyagraha; to embed the values of Jesus’ Beatitudes; striving to be meek, to be merciful, to be pure in heart; longing for justice; seeking to be a peacemaker.
And then I run over a cat.
So is it all in vain? My blogging on justice issues, voting to remain in the EU, urging my MP to speak out against the Trident programme, joining the Green party?
It seems to me that, no matter how hard we try, the reality is that we live in a culture of violence and greed. And I, too, have bought into that. I try to live simply, but the reality is that my lifestyle is extravagant, even by the standards of many in my own country. I speak out against injustice, and yet the luxuries I enjoy are bought on the back of oppression.
Even the car, on which I am so dependent, is itself a tool of violence: guzzling up fossil fuels with every mile I travel; pouring forth its CO2 and other pollutants into our atmosphere; disrupting the peace of my evening with its penetrating background noise; luring me into an ever-more frantic pace of life; and harming innocent felines as it goes.