Chilling Killer

I read this article this morning and thought I would throw up. The article speaks of one Clarence Bailey, who, having just been convicted of capital murder of an elderly woman, leaned back in his chair and grinned while the elderly woman's son spoke during the victim impact statement time during the sentencing phase.  Bailey, speaking without permission, then said, "I'm still gonna be a man."

Is our society ever going to wake up to the fact that when people are raised without moral principles deeply ingrained in their souls that such "people" are really lower than animals on the morality chain?  In my understanding, only badly damaged animals kill just for the pleasure of it.  Yes, killing goes on in the animal world, but it is done in the name of survival, to feed themselves and their offspring, not for pleasure and not to prove something.

Only humans, utterly debased humans, get to go that low, to kill just to prove something.  Debased humans land there, the ones that fill their minds with trash, trash that elevates cruelty, rape, murder and violence as admirable and desirable. 

When will we figure out that cruelty begets cruelty? When will we finally understand that Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek" is the only path that can ultimately lead to some sort of decency among us?

I am always reminded after I read something like this that the veneer of civilization is both thin and fragile and takes much work to maintain it.

But it can happen and it happens only with the transformation of the soul and the willingness to engage in the real "manhood" of the journey to sanctification.  It can.  But it usually doesn't.