breaking the cycle

The reason people do evil, why they hate sin or make mistakes, is because at some point they were hurt, rejected, excluded, or wounded. They just keep passing it on and the cycle repeats and spreads. Jesus, you could say, came to break, and even stop, the cycle

                               Richard Rohr (the wisdom pattern, p.37)

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there is no question people engaged in what is evil

 

of course evil is often in the eye of the beholder

what one person sees as evil, another might actually see as good

 

but evil is, essentially, the opposite or absence of good

it is whatever violates our confused concepts of what is moral

 

there are certainly things most of us would agree are evil

sexual abuse

physical abuse

murder

 

there are things you would think we would agree are evil

but perhaps don’t

racism

 

there are things that we don’t agree on at all

is capitalism evil?

some say yes, while others say no

how about “socialism”? (whatever that really is)

again, no agreement

 

it gets tricky

but here is a trickier question

are particular people evil?

 

Is it “ok” to put that label on another human being?

That person, that one, right there, who is causing so much pain and misery

That person is evil!!!!

 

It is tempting for sure

 

But I have become increasingly convinced that while people may do evil things

seeing them as “evil” is not a Jesus thing

 

the closest thing we have to that in the Bible is Jesus telling poor Peter

“get thee behind me Satan!!”

 

but I don’t think “Satan” was Peter, but rather a perversion of the Gospel

Peter’s denial that the way of God was not the way of domination, but the way of sacrificial servanthood.

 

“Put that thought away” Jesus was saying

“If you start thinking God is about domination and wealth

that will take you into evil places”

(sadly the church today has all too often done just that)

 

I don’t think people are evil

I think they are wounded, damaged

Perhaps twisted and distorted

 

Certainly the image of God in us can be almost totally blurred

 

But I have to believe that it is never eradicated

gone

 

so I am called to see

even in that person I find most abhorrent

a child of God

 

It is difficult sometimes

Just as, I assume, it is sometimes difficult

for some to see the divine reality in me

 

but it is something I must attempt

for my change of perspective, while it may not impact the other

has an impact on me

it changes how I think, how I feel, and how I act

 

It changes cursing to blessing

And the lust for retribution into a deep desire for reconciliation

It changes my desires about what happens to that person

It changes my prayers for that person

In short, it breaks the cycle

 

If nowhere else, than in my own heart

And that is

something