Comforting or Scary?

Disturbed by Corrie Ten Boom’s description of the Nazi guards, I’ve been pondering since finishing The Hiding Place: how can humans act like that? The cruelty she described as the guards ordered prisoners about, the forced marches, the insistent shouting in the face of sickness and frailty. Where did the humanity go?

Then I see the Amtrak employees moving crowds through the train station – barked orders, patrolled lines, the confused eyes of the passengers. There was nothing wrong with the treatment, absolutely nothing at all. But in it I see the slippery slope that became what Corrie described. Humans, all of us, in everything we do.

Is that comforting, or scary? Maybe both.