Early yesterday morning I responded to an email from a close friend. The topic was ‘Evil.’ The question: ‘Are there people who are evil?’ I have found that at times definitions help me. Here is a definition for ‘Evil.’ ‘Evil’ = morally wrong, harmful/injurious, characterized by suffering, due to ‘bad’/immoral character.
My current belief is that each of us is — at our healthiest — a living paradox. We are both: good and evil, virtue and vice, light and darkness. If I conceptualize a continuum: ‘Good______Evil,’ I will choose which end of the continuum I will spend more time near. As imperfect beings, during our life time each of us will move along this continuum. Some will choose to spend more time closer to the ‘good’ and some will choose to spend more time closer to the ‘evil’ (the ‘Evil’ as I have defined it above). During our life-time we develop behaviors, habits, attitudes, perceptions, values, beliefs, assumptions, life principles that support our choice. Where we choose to spend the majority of our time then becomes our ‘golden mean’ and over time we become defined by our ‘golden mean.’ We also define others according to our own definitions (for ‘Good’ or ‘Evil’ or for ‘Virtue’ or ‘Vice’ or for ‘Light’ or ‘Darkness’).
At our worst we label people – ‘This is who the person is!’ – The person IS EVIL incarnate. We forget the continuum. Or, we deny the continuum exists; that is, we deny that as imperfect begins WE ARE BOTH ‘Good and Evil’; WE ARE BOTH ‘Virtue and Vice’; WE ARE BOTH ‘Light and Darkness.’
Many years ago I had the privilege of hearing Terry Anderson tell his captivity story. I was deeply moved by his story and his poetry. One of his poems continues to provide me insight and hope amidst the ‘Evil’ that appears to be running amok among us human beings today. Those who live into and out of the definition of ‘Evil’ I noted above have many names and many identities. The first ‘name’ and the first ‘identity’ that I must come to grips with is my own; just as the first ‘name’ and the first ‘identity’ that you must come to grips with is your own. A wise person once counseled us to look for the log in our own eye and remove it before we look for the splinter in the other’s eye. Is there any person who is entirely ‘evil’? I think not. Even ‘Satan’ was/is not entirely ‘evil’ (lest we forget, Satan was one of God’s favorites).
I leave us this morning with Terry Anderson’s powerful poem. I invite you, gentle reader, to seek to understand and ‘name’ when you are choosing ‘evil’ — when are you the perpetrator (it is easier to see ourselves as the prisoner; the victim). I also invite you to choose to seek to see the humanity in those who have been labeled as ‘Evil.’
SATAN
Satan is a name we use
for darkness in the world,
a goat on which we load
our most horrific sins,
to carry off our guilt.
But all the evil I have seen
was done by human beings.
It isn’t a dark angel
who rigs a car into a bomb,
or steals money meant for others’ food.
And it wasn’t any alien spirit
that chained me to this wall.
One of those who kidnapped me
said once: “No man believes he’s evil.”
A penetrating and subtle thought
in these circumstances, and from him.
And that’s the mystery:
He’s not stupid, and doesn’t seem insane.
He knows I’ve done no harm to him or his.
He’s looked into my face
each day for years, and
heard me crying in the night.
Still he daily checks my chain,
makes sure my blindfold is secure,
then kneels outside my cell
and prays to Allah, merciful, compassionate.
I know too well the darker urges in myself,
the violence and selfishness.
I’ve seen little in him I can’t recognize.
I also know my mind would shatter,
my soul would die if I did the things he does.
I’m tempted to believe there really is
a devil in him, some malefic,
independent force that makes him
less or other than a man.
That’s too easy and too dangerous an answer;
It’s how so many evils come to be.
I must reject, abhor and fight against
these acts, and acknowledge that
they’re not human – just the opposite.
We can’t separate the things
we do from what we are;
Hate the sin and love the sinner is not
a concept I’ll ever really understand.
I’ll never love him – I’m not Christ.
But I’ll try to achieve forgiveness
because I know that in the end,
as always, Christ was right. –Terry Anderson