Either You're With Us or Against Us

It was hard at first for me to get into this story, I hardly ever enjoy when a second language is used in literature but isn't translated. I understand it has meaning, but I don't know spanish so I don't know what that meaning is. It's as if I were talking to someone and just rambled a phrase in German knowing they didn't understand me but never bothered to tell them what I said. Not a big deal though, just a pet peeve that it wasn't a footnote or anything. I'm also not Catholic, nor have I ever been to a Catholic mass so the beginning turned me off becuase when the author is talking about how everyone is equal on Ash Wednesday (3312) I just kind of thought to myself, "well not everyone, I mean maybe every Catholic but that's certainly not everyone in the world" not a huge deal but it's hard to get into something when it seems the audience for the narration is so narrow. I did manage to connect with one part of this story and that's the nature of children. Children are pack animals. If you are weak, if you are different, you won't be accepted by the pack. If you go against them you will be rejected and if you defend someone that's not in the pack you are making a statment of betrayl and must be punished. This is basic child psychology. They learn to make friends with people that share commonalities with and ostersize those that don't necessarily belong. It's sad, when Tony actually does the right thing, defending his friend and refusing to give him a "punishment" before everyone the crowd of children turns on him. It reminded me of the story of Jesus and the Prositute. The men of the town wanted to stone her, they wanted her dead and Jesus made a statment that he who hath no sin shall cast the first stone. This wasn't exactly what happened with the kids but it showed signs of that, and then when Tony took the punishment, and actually cried out to God. It reminded me of the Crusifiction when before Christ died he cried out to his father asking for him to forgive those that had done this to him. Standing up to bullies is a Christ like behavior because it in essence puts yourself in harms way to protect another. Someone who might not be like you, someone who isn't always innocent themselves but you defend them because you know it's right. I read that part and thought it was pretty nice that despite thier difference in beliefs Tony still defended his friend and didn't judge him like the rest. He took the punishment of his peers and wasn't vengeful toward them or even mad at Florence, he just got up and went into confession. Kind of a neat picture.