Britain raped India. And China. And Africa. And the Middle East. And and and. Great, Britain!Great work!

Work of great energy, bravery, and determination, yes! And also work of great arrogance, great selfishness, great spiritual blindness, and great small-mindedness. Consider all of the brutalization, suffering, and dehumanization brought to humanity by that cruel work!

And the work, no doubt, of many of my ancestors.

Sir Richard Grenville, (1542-1591), renowned English sea captain, was the first cousin once removed of a direct ancestor of mine, George Grenville (who died in 1580). Sir Richard Grenville’s grandfather, also named Richard Grenville, was the brother of George’s father, Digory Grenville (d.1539). Sir Richard Grenville’s great-grandfather, Sir Roger Grenville (1477-1523), was my great-great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great-great grandfather (12 greats). Sir Roger Grenville’s father was Sir Thomas Grenville (1450-1513), who among other things was a close assistant to King Henry VII. Sir Thomas Grenville was descended from yet another Sir Richard Grenville, who

was a brother of Robert Fitzhamon and one of the “Twelve Knights of Glamorgan.”

Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591) had sought to lead an expedition that would have made the first British voyage around the world (second in all--after Magellan), but that honor was given to Sir Francis Drake. He and Drake were both privateers -- pirates, sanctioned by the British government to prey on others (the Spanish, who were returning to Europe with vast fortunes of gold and silver stolen from South America).

Sir Richard Grenville (1542-1591), also cousin to Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Francis Drake, was the Admiral and the General, and a ship’s captain, of the second British expedition to the site of what would shortly later become the first British attempt to establish a colony in the America’s. This attempt, which was on the Outer Banks of what is today North Carolina, failed, and is known to history as “the Lost Colony.” Apparently, Sir Richard Grenville himself strongly contributed to the development of the very bad relations between the English would-be colonists and the local “Indians”, which somewhat later contributed to the failure (and disappearance) of this proto-colony.

Sir Richard Grenville is just one of my ancestors who were covered in imperialism’s blood. There were numerous others, some of whom are mentioned above.

The great bloody work--the work of creating an empire--springs almost straight from the selfishness that is intrinsic to human life--to biological life.

Note that I wrote “springs almost straight.”We would much better steer our course even more true--not to create an empire, in law or fact, or any such bloody selfish thing, but to create integrity, in the midst of this chaos!

That would be worthy work! That work would leave a worthwhile legacy. Having done that work, we would have cause to feel good. Having done that work, we would have done God’s work.