he town of Dachau is about 1/2 hour away from the city of Munich. The camp itself was surrounded by homes and small farms during the Natzi Regime as it is today. It was sickening to think how either fearful the towns people were of the Natzi’s or how supportive they were living right outside of camp.

We spent about 5 hours touring the camp using audio devices. The feeling of horror I had was just not expressable , especially as I was thinking about people who deny the Holocaust today.

You know, I love my children, and the other day I watched a woman in one of Alban’s classes pull her child out of the class and berate him for no reason, calling him names, and badmouthing him to another mother. I thought, “I think this kid is used to this–he just seems to be taking it on the chin…what is his future? What kind of adult is this treatment going to produce?” I’ve seen women beat their kids in public places; we’ve all seen that. And we want to think we’d never be capable of something like that.

But it takes about 10 seconds before you realize that those tendencies are in your own heart, too. What mother hasn’t uttered words she’s regretted to the very children of her own body? Or handled them roughly only to collapse in tears seconds later in the realization that she went too far? And put an ideology behind something, and pursue it to its logical end, add self-justification and see where it leads.

My biological father was physically abusive to my mother. I never met him, and have almost no desire to. One day she had a flashback of a beating, and as I watched it, and ruminated on it later, I thought, almost in a cold and calculate way, “In this case, I could commit murder on my own father, if I were to meet him right now.”

Jeff just told me about these twins, pre-teens who play terrible music and call themselves “Prussian Blue”. They are being raised by their mother to be white supremists. He also told me about a website of a prominent Holocaust-denier. How incredibly scary, that this is again happening in our day and age, when we thought we had learned.

I think the only answer lies in repentance. Not just once, but repeatedly giving over even the most minute infraction to the Lord. Where else is our hope? Because we can be just like anyone else. Beautiful, made in God’s image, but horribly depraved. Lord, have mercy.