The lead piece is from "Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris. In this book she takes many of the words and images of the faith and attempts to put some reality and life to them.
GOOD AND EVIL
In writing on these realities Norris says: ...I prefer the perspective of the Roman poet Terence, who wrote: "I am human; I do not think of any human thing as foreign to me." I feel that it is my business, when I read the news account of some horrible crime not to regard my "good" self as completely separate from the "bad" people depicted in the story but to search my own heart for a connection. I try to see if I can understand how it is these people have done what they have done. Not to excuse them, but to draw them closer in order to pray for them and also to prayer over what it means to be linked with them in a common humanity. And sometimes murderers do help me recognize that my own anger feels like murder; I can comprehend all too well how my rage, left unchecked, might translate into a careless or even truly terrible act meant to destroy another.
Sure there is a line that can be drawn between good and evil. What is also the case is the fact that this line is drawn right through each of us. It is that warfare that takes place prior to warfare taking place all around us and with us included in it. The Church must be the collection of God's people who are continuously inspired to look again at who we are and who can become "in the twinkling of an eye." We can be a part of the changing of this day as we are honest about "our part" or "our potential" to seek the utter separation of one another either by war or anger or judging others and giving us the "right" to get rid of them. In an informal conversation this past week a person made a comment about the inhuman treatment of a person against a group of people. And then...he stopped and corrected himself...it is not inhumanity that does the horrendous things to others, it is our humanity...being human...that can create the greatest and most calculated acts of evil.
Connection: We have the opportunity today to see to the well-being of our community. It means we will at times have to say "no" and at times say "yes." It means we will need to have a light that allows us to see ourselves and one another very honestly.
Lord you bring us to the crossroads of life in which we must face the traffic that speeds our way. Teach us to be patient, flexible and firm. So that when good or evil presents itself to us we will see the possibility of going down both pathways and yet, we, by your Spirit's power, call us to a new life shaped by your Beloved, Jesus. Amen.
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