'Tis a crying shame

I'm not one who much relishes visiting relics. Heck, I didn't get misty-eyed trooping around Israel for a month. (Walking the same paths that Jesus and David walked - oh well.)

The other day, in the United Kingdom, someone hacked down a thorn bush that was thought to be especially holy. As the story goes, Joseph of Arimethia brought not only the Holy Grail, but Jesus' staff to this spot in Glastonbury. Joseph stuck the staff into the ground and the staff became the thorn bush that has attracted visitors and pilgrims ever since. There was a time when Oliver Cromwell (400 years ago) had the bush cut down, but it was not destroyed - and was eventually replanted.

It's too bad that the perpetrators had to destroy such a thing so important to so many others.

(Still no definitive word about the grail. But some people have been looking. Here and here.)