A memorial to the Lusitania in Cobh, County Cork, Ireland
Good Day, God!
Oh sigh, O DRAT! It is alway discomfiting, God, to have to rewrite history as I learned it. The Lusitania was sort of a sailing Pearl Harbor, circa 1915.
Great Britain was in what was know as the Great War and doing badly. Their best hope was to have America join in. But, America was not interested. What to do?
How about lure the Germans (under Kaiser Wilhelm) in to sinking a commercial ship with Americans on board — the Lusitania? Now, that deed would serve as a rallying point to drum up American public opinion on the side of England! Sure enough, the Germans sank the Lusitania and American lives were lost. Propaganda mills turned and America entered the war in 1917
It turns out that the ship had a lot of ammunition in it. Enough ammunition that just ONE torpedo caused a big explosion. And the ship sank in 18 minutes. I suppose you could call it a Sacrificial Lamb — staked out for the U Boat wolves by Churchill. People in charge seem to do that, God. And I don’t want to know that.
Indeed, what really bothered me was the memory of having “learned” about this in college — and having “forgotten” it — so I wouldn’t have had to change my mental map of who were the “good guys” and who were the “bad guys”. Oh, how we RESIST changing those good / bad maps of childhood.
Please, help me God to seek Your Help in seeing clearly — seeing with compassion — myself, those around me, and out into the larger world — seeing and then remapping my inner world.
Story teller,
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