Evil

After the tragedy in that New England grade school I have found many trying to understand how things like that can happen. How can a person like that, such an evil person, grow up unnoticed in a country like ours? Many are questioning just what causes evil like that and what causes someone like him to become an evil person that could cause so much misery and heartache to so many. I wondered, were some people born that way or maybe that way before birth? How could my God, my loving God, allow such a thing to happen? I found myself confused. When I find myself confused or troubled I go to my “true source” with my questions. My question; I’m finding more evil in my world today. Why? I was told that evil was an emotion that had to be learned! And that many start that learning at an early age. And that evil is easy to find in my today’s world. That many find it difficult to avoid! Also, that many find it difficult to distinguish between good and evil. Our marketing in today’s world gives the impression many times that evil is good! Makes it a desirable goal! Just listen to the words of many songs, look at the album covers and video covers, watch many TV shows, and look at the hate and violence we find creeping in to today’s sports. Sad as it may seem, evil sells! As we read past the headlines, we often find hate and violence walking hand in hand with evil. Sadly, evil is not expected or found until after a violent episode! I’m finding often that evil is overlooked or excused until it happens. Up to now I’ve touched on the easy stuff. Tell me this; do we look upon all evil as unforgivable or do we judge it on a one to ten scale as we do many other things in our lives? I lost one son to a man driving drunk. How evil do I judge that man to be? My son is just as dead as anyone of those poor little kids shot in their classroom! He never again will be sitting next to me at the dinner table! How do I rate that man’s evil that took my son from me? Or, how do I rate the fellow student who bullied me for every school day for over a year? I looked upon him as evil, but each was looked upon then or later as” respected members of my community!” I guess evil only is supposed to affect the ones it was directed to! I am finding that it is difficult for me to put a word description on evil. It is always easy to see the outcome of evil, but to put the emotion into words, I find is beyond me. I find it more difficult than fitting it within the boundaries of right or wrong, or even love or hate, both emotions that I find hard for me to put into words. As I look closely, I’m finding most of today’s religions are based on the principles of good and evil and the many different interpretations of evil. Some refer to evil as sin. As I sit here, thinking about those poor little kids, my mind shifts to the shooter. Could it be that the evil one really won? That he reached his goal? Being a loner and being mostly alone, could it be that all he wanted was to put his name in history books forever? And then he died! After something like that happens, I think God expects us to become comforters. I have found many that have asked me questions that they didn’t expect answers for, they just needed to talk and someone to listen! They didn’t expect me to answer, they just wanted someone to listen and maybe at the end to share a hug. There are some questions that only God can answer, but I’m not sure I’m ready to ask.