How tragic is your example of the Romanian orphans Matthew, and how awful is the sort of the very young left in isolation like that. But the fact of a black hole where their orbitofrontal cortex should be, speaks volumes! We are communal beings, not individuals but interdividuals who are inculturated into desiring beings by those around us, both in the positive and the negative sense. We are all a mixture of the good and the bad! This is where our contemplative, spiritual traditions come into play, in the redirecting of all desire towards the good. René Girard describes the conversion process as ‘the redirection of desire towards God’, or otherwise expressed, the ancient tradition of the ‘imitation of Christ’.
