One of the most paradoxical things about humans is that our enormous capacity for generosity and selfless love is matched by an astounding capacity for cruelty, greed, and destructiveness. To be human is to carry the seeds of great good and great evil, great light and great darkness, great creativity and great destructiveness. For every Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King we have one Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler. For every person squandering their life on spreading love, we have those who destroy their own lives and those of countless others as they spread hatred and destruction. It is tempting to think in binary terms about good and evil but I must understand that the capacity of both good and evil lies within me.
A failure to recognize my own darkness merely sets me up to project it onto others. This is a fundamental operating principle of the unconscious. My freedom can only come by embracing the unwelcome parts of me and loving them into wholeness. Evil is not a trait nor a failure of moral development. It is the consequences of choices. Evil may have roots in our personal histories but what brings evil into existence is the choices we make, primarily about the way we respond to things that happen to us. With God, who is love, as my center, I remain attached to the good. It’s easier to make choices for good versus evil with God’s wisdom and strength to guide me. Bearing the fruit of kindness to others as I show kindness to myself.
He who plants kindness gathers love.
St. Basil
Thank You Lord for helping me embrace the dark parts of myself, choosing to bring goodness and kindness to the world.
Smitten With Goodness 