John 1:6-9 There was a man sent from God, his name John. He came for witness, that he might witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him. *He* was not the light, but that he might witness concerning the light. The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man.

My short Science Fiction story, I am Sorrow, came out this month in Antipodean SF, issue 280. It is my favorite kind of Speculative Fiction story because it crosses into historical fiction. In other words, it really could have happened that way. There’s a classic no-prize (literally, no prize, but still a fun challenge) to the first person to post the exact date and time of the last event in the story.

John 1:1-5 In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.

I have to admit that many times in my life I have felt like fighting the world. Especially when it blatantly upholds and even glorifies the worst in humanity: the murder of the innocent, the hatred of the different, the abuse and plundering of the helpless.

There are three kinds of people in the world: Those that can add and those that can’t. I guess that explains the title. Actually, I thought I was done, but after wrapping up this series, I felt there were things left unsaid… mostly about how we (individually) apply Justice and Mercy.

One of the best-known passages of the Gospel happens at the beginning of the 8th chapter of John, (verses 2 through 5): And early in the morning he (Jesus) came again into the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and the Pharisees bring [to him] a woman taken in adultery, and having set her in the midst, they say to him, Teacher, this woman has been taken in the very act, committing adultery. Now in the law Moses has commanded us to stone such; thou therefore, what sayest thou?

If you have heard the story before, you know that the turning point in that passage happens when Jesus tells the crowd, “Let him among you who is without sin, cast the first stone.” Jesus knew what would happen after that. The woman left that place unscathed.