Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Love and Evil

My daughter - the real deal - posted a very moving message on the problem of evil in reaction to a tragic event in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. This is what I said in response.

Long ago and far away I was a Child Protection Caseworker for the VT Department of Social Services. Though my stint was short lived, because of the nature of the work, I witnessed horrors that humans can inflict on each other. Not nameless, faceless strangers lurking in the bushes - fathers, and uncles and mothers, brutalizing and molesting their own. I left because of the violent nightmares of what I would do if anyone should harm one of my daughters. The dreams would make Saw and Chuckie and Freddy cringe.

The evil that lives inside each of us is horrible. As a peace seeking and nonviolent man, I embarrassingly admit that chromosome is part of my DNA as well. We (I) endanger ourselves and others when we egotistically deny its presence. Its roots run deep in our heritage.

Think of it like this: in the history of humanity there has never been an era that was devoid of war - sometimes global, often regional, but always there killing and thinning the ranks of the human species. And who do you think survived through all those wars, the nice and the gentle ones? Hardly! The survivors, and the progenitors of us all were the conquering tribes - the killers, the rapists and the raped. Violence in in our bloodstream.

But as you so wisely pointed out, that is not what beats our hearts; that is not what causes us to breathe and live on. Within us also is love - call it what you will - I name that "god." So our human genetic predisposition toward evil - not our fallenness - our natural selection in action, is confronted by our life itself. But the scary part is that we appear to have been gifted with free choice. That is the rub, as the Bard would say. Each day we either surrender to the love that lives us into being or the hate and evil that is our birthright. And when we go unconscious love often takes second place.

My prayer today is that we hold tightly onto that holy and sacred force in us, in full awareness that we must root out the other force, the evil that courses through our veins. Every great sage has said it: love conquers all; love is stronger than hate; love is all we need. May we choose love today, and tomorrow and each tomorrow after that.

I am so sad for my former colleagues and neighbors and family who, living in the "Kingdom" must face that specter today. May love rule the day.