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Beside the Sea of Glass The Bomb is a tower of Babel dedicated to the proposition that the builders need fear neither God nor humans. And it is no sooner built, armed, calibrated, poised, incanted, praised, stroked, polished, checked, guarded, reverenced, than we discover a whole new galaxy of fear! We fear that another nation may also have the Bomb, its god, its half an inch taller, a quarter inch fatter, a tiny bit more lethal, . . . Now, with thousands of doomsday toys scattered around the devilish nursery, we must fear not just one opposite number but thirty or forty. Like multiple reflecting mirrors, they show back at us, we at them, and all of us at one another, a perfect, cold, static image of fear. He who grabs the sword starts an infinite series of such mirror images, creates his opposite number through his own readiness for violence. Daniel Berrigan, SJ |