CONTAINING A THEOLOGICAL DISCOURSE ON GRATITUDE

Caption: Seamus McGoogle is overcome with gratitude.

Since Thanksgiving is coming up, the theme for this week's Goat Rope is gratitude.

Sneak preview: El Cabrero is all for it. Not just for all the little kindnesses people do to each other all the time, but also for all the times when things are actually good or at least not as terrible as they could be.

This is a truth worthy of consideration: everything is not all bad all the time. For which I am profoundly grateful.

While I probably wouldn't pass too many tests of theological orthodoxy, I totally down with St. Thomas Aquinas on this one: ingratitude is a sin. To be exact, the Angelic Doctor said that

a debt of gratitude is a moral debt required by virtue. Now a thing is a sin from the fact of its being contrary to virtue. Wherefore it is evident that every ingratitude is a sin.

The same point was also elaborated by the character Shug in Alice Walker's The Color Purple:

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

Next time: what the ungrateful get in Dante's Inferno.

REHAB, POSTMODERN STYLE. Holy sign of the times, Batman. In S. Korea, there's a boot camp for people addicted to cyberspace. El Cabrero is a collector of postmodern moments and this is one of the best.

THAT'S ENOUGH! Here's another gem by Perry Mann, my favorite WV op-ed writer, on knowing when enough is enough.

MINE DISASTERS, old and new.

SPEAKING OF DISASTERS, ignoring climate change could be the biggest ever.

MEGAN WILLIAMS UPDATE. Here's coverage of a local event at WV State University in support of stronger hate crime laws.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED