evil

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

                                           Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

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We know evil when we see

When we hear it

When we encounter it

We walk, these days, knee deep in evil

Racism

Oppression

Lies

Greed

It is there

In evil people

Insidiously committing evil deeds

And at one level our hearts scream against what we see

And hear

And we hear the screams of those

Who are neglected

Oppressed

Minimized

Bullied

but our hearts are conflicted

we hear the siren call

for safety

and the promise of wealth

and our hearts are dawn

by the sinister power of hate

and by the warped “supremacy” of the bully

and we waver

and we let false shepherds convince us

that somehow

what we know is false is true

and that what we know is true

know at our God level is true,

is false

and we vote for Roy Moore, and Donald Trump

and we celebrate a heartless budget

and we exclude the refugee

and we neglect the poor

scrambling for scraps from the table of the masters

and we slowly sink into the ooze and slime

slowly sink

until there is no return

short of death

Lord may we die

Die to self

Die to greed

Die to hate

Die to patriotism

May we die a million little deaths

On our way to our great death

For in that death is life

For in that loss is victory

For in that letting go, we grab hold of what is good

For in that end, is perhaps

A beginning