Live Goodness

[Julian] tells us that Goodness “is the quality of God that meets evil with good.”  For her retrieving and remembering goodness and recovering a sense of goodness, is at the heart of combatting suffering and evil.

              Matthew Fox, Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a time of Pandemic – and Beyond

 

hello heatwave!

I watch as the normally verdant valley

bakes to brown

and hardy shrubs with and succumb

 

the heat sucks  the life out of one’s soul

and one can only trudge through the day

scorched and listless

 

it is a wasteland out there

a desert

 

in more ways than one

 

hello suffering and evil!

they too seem to bear relentless down

suppressing and oppressing

 

leaving us sucked dry

and wondering

 

sometimes we merely attempt to hide

sometimes we battle

the heat and the evil alike

 

but just as we cannot battle heat with heat

we cannot battle evil with evil

we cannot return hate for hate

 

there is no solution

in such a response

 

it is tempting sometimes

to “own” the enemy

and the slide into retribution

there is momentary satisfaction in the scathing reply

 

but then

there we are

standing in the wilderness

devastation all around

Adam and Eve in exile

 

only cooling clouds and life giving rain

can break a drought

 

only goodness can combat evil

 

 

it is no mystery why Paul the Apostle implored

overcome evil with good

 

it is the way of God

it is the way of Jesus

it is the way of the cross

 

this day

even as the heat intensifies

my the cooling presence of grace

calm the fires within

as we seek to combat the fires without

 

this day may I wander into the coolness

of those deep places

where love lives

 

and remember

remember

remember

goodness

 

and then, live it