Like millions of others around the world, I went out Saturday morning to purchase Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I spent much of Saturday and a few hours Sunday devouring it before my kids got their hands on it. It was an excellent installment, but the ending took me by surprise and reduced me to tears. I won't say more than that there was a death, and that it made me cry.

Meanwhile, in the real world, in Iraq on Sunday, 71 people died in a single, particularly violent attack. I didn't know about it until I heard it on the news this morning, and in the bustle of getting ready for work, there were no tears. Somehow, a fictional death of a fictional character can make me cry, but I cannot find the tears for 71 lives snuffed out and 156 people injured in the real world. Does this seem as topsy-turvy to you as it does to me?

Sunday morning at church, we heard an excellent sermon on the wheat and the weeds, and on what happens when we - who are not the sowers of the wheat or the weeds - try to take it upon ourselves to get rid of the weeds. For some, the weeds are gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in the church. For others, the weeds are American soldiers and Iraqi citizens who choose to work with them. For yet others, the weeds may be Muslims in general. For me, I find that I agree with my rector. There's not one person in the world who is a complete weed. There is not one person here who is not a unique and wonderful creation, a beloved child of God, who does not comprise a mixture of pesky weeds and good wholesome wheat. I don't care if you point out Hitler or Hussein or bin Laden or Manson or the BTK killer who has recently been in the news. Not one of those men is a waste. Even if Voldemort himself walked into my office and slew everybody here with an avada kedavra I would not admit that he is 100% weed, 100% unsaveable, 100% beyond the reach of God's salvation.

But today, I find that there's a weed I'd like to pull, and that's the weed that can hear news like the news of this brutal bombing and not cry. Have we all grown so hardened and cynical that we are unmoved, or is it just me? Have I let myself get so battered by the media that I can't bring myself to care any more? I don't know. And I find myself often repeating the psalmist: How long, O Lord? How long?