a dualistic world/mind

It's easy to live out of the real world in Durham. I don't have a tv or newspapers. Ok I should make more of an effort with the internet,but in reality I have no clue what's going on in the world. I would say between 5 and 7 days a week I'm studying evil. Reading case studies, events, groups, exorcisms, possession and the extent to which man can ruin themselves. But once again it's easy to take the academic approach and not think too much about the reality. I came home yesterday and when I went to pick my mum up from work there were three items on the news.

1. 5 prostitutes have been murdered in Suffolk in the last couple of weeks. (latest on the news)
2. At Wythenshawe College (probably about half an hour away from me, if that) a girl was being bullied by another girl. And so the parents of the bullied girl bought one and a half litres of petrol, poured it through the door of the house of the girl doing the bullying, and set fire to it, killing the parents, and harming the girl in the house. (news report)
3. The day before yesterday a 19 year old girl was raped by three men on the next street to my dad's surgery. (can't find a link to this one!)

But basically I sat there watching the news later on, in shock to it all. It's so easy when you're studying it day in day out to forget that men actually do this not just write about it. Then went to watch Simon in one of his Christmas concerts, but I couldn't stop all this from plaguing my mind. It was Wigan Big Band, Wigan Intermediate Brass Band and Wigan Youth BrassBand playing. I have a weakness for Brass Band music anyway particularly at Christmas. Now my faith is more than dented at the moment, my parents asked despairingly yesterday whether I'd been to Mass in the last few months, and then followed with why not? But there was something about a big Brass Band playing 'When a Child is Born' that made me want to get down on my knees and cry. I didn't! But that thing of hope that I talked about at Easter, with everything then- just showed a glimmer, amongst the horrific place I live in and reminded me that although dented, it's not destroyed, I know where my heart lies.