Fragile Conditions

If you ride around Europe much on trains....these days, it doesn't take much to freak people out.

I noticed a piece from several British newspapers appearing.  It happened a couple of days ago in the London area with folks on board some train near the Wimbledon station.

Some guy started to read lines from his Bible.  For some reason, folks on the train got into a hyped-up sense and had some fear.  A passenger asked to stop with the verbal reading.

The guy went into the entirely opposite direction then....telling folks in the cabin that he was going 'preach' to them.  He wanted  to introduce them to Jesus and heal them. 

At that point, passengers went from the 'bit-worried' stage to full-up scared (description by one passenger).  Someone must have pulled the emergency cord, and the train stopped.   Folks were then trying to open up the door and make for an escape.  This was one of those situations where the engineer had to request power to be turned off and it cut off other trains on that line at the time.

Charges?  Well, it's hard to figure what you could charge some guy with in this case.  One witness did say that the guy seemed to just overly serious about his religious business.

But this brings me to the real topic of this essay, the fragile nature of the general public today.

I think forty years ago, this guy could have done the sermon business on the train and people would have just kept reading their newspapers, or gazing out the window.  Today, there is this fear of nutcases and what might come next.

Part of the blame is the news media and their 'blast' of news across to the general public.  And part of this might be due to the number of nutcases walking around, which used to be held in facilities but today....no one wants to detain or hold them. 

Just having Jehovah-people show up at your door....will freak some people out these days.  In the past year, I've had two visitations here at the house (in Germany), which you would normally not expect.  For an American who has experienced this before, it's not a big deal.  For some Germans opening the door....there might be some fear. 

We live in an 'umbrella-like' society today.  It's tough for some folks.