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Fall Festival of Fruit

Fall Festival of Fruit

A few more of the photos I took during last Sunday’s apple picking. These are the “arty” ones that didn’t seem to belong in the other post. I’m rather pleased with the way they all came out. And a little hungry now too.

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4 comments
  • I wanted to clarify that in our conversation on the topic, you didn’t just say that it was an “unfortunate” practice, but also that it was gravely wrong and objectively evil. Don’t want to leave the impression that you don’t condemn it as such.

  • I’d think it was pretty clear that while mistreatment or killing of infants might be understandable, it certainly is always and everywhere objectively evil. I do think there is some mitigating factor when a couple turn to the priest and he okays this kind of solution, though. If you really believe you are killing a fairy rather than your own human child, you are certainly wrong and are still committing murder; but I think the individual’s culpability would be lessened and it might not be a mortal sin. Still, it’s a very good thing that we are now much clearer on respecting all human life and recognize the humanity and the intrinsic worth of the deformed and disabled.

    Jeannine,
    I think it’s a good bet that at least some of the chageling stories are related to colic as one of the signs of a changeling is a previously good-natured, quiet baby who suddenly won’t stop crying and seems to take on a new personality. But the signs of a changeling are so varied in all the myriad forms of the legend that I don’t think it can be explained by any one thing. Rather, to call a child a changeling was to provide an explanation that covered a multitude of causes: birth defects, handicaps, retardation. In the Whittier poem I suspect the mother may have post-partem depression.

    Also, I’m sure the devil delighted in these stories which turned people against charity toward the disabled, turned the hands of parents against their own children. Ironic, really, that the real work of the devil was not in switching the innocent child with one of his own but in convincing the pious parents that it was licit to murder their innocent infant.

  • Since colic appears at about 6 weeks, I’ve sometimes wondered whether stories about changelings related to the onset of colic.

  • Of course you’re right. It’s terrible to think that some people now want to do the same thing—to justify killing an innocent child—in the name of “science” or (worse) “ethics” or “the rights of the parents.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

    I enjoy your blog very much! I’m an English teacher at a community college.

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