Evil in me

In a celebrated speech, the former President of the US, Ronald Reagan, described the then USSR as the "empire of evil." How uncomplicated life would be if evil could be thus geographically confined. I see the ISIS, and then say these are the evil guys. I see the terrorists who kill innocent guys, and then say these terrorists are the evil ones. Or we may think about Hitler’s massacre of six million Jews, or Stalin's atrocities in former USSR. Evil, most of us think, is out there. True. Shakespeare's words are true, "The evil men do lives after them." But what about the evil that is within us? I have no power over evil, except that which I have in myself. For evil to triumph, it is enough that good men and women do nothing. Too many people look the other way. The poet W.B. Yeats describes, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

When we think that evil is outside there, then we want to destroy it out there. I want to destroy the ISIS. I want to change the terrorists. I want to convert the fundamentalists. I even feel anger or hate against them. But we forget the truth that we are part of the evil that we are fighting against. I need to deal the evil and the violence that is within me, first and foremost. Otherwise how will I be able to deal with the evil outside of me? How can I wage a war against war? Can I use violence against violence? Can I use blood to wash away blood?

As Christians we must first see in ourselves what we see in others: good and bad. If we hate it over there and and not in ourselves, we become self-righteous. The inner movement is to recognize the sinner in ourselves and to forgive ourselves for our sin. This does mean that we recognize our sin as sin, we see its evil and its damage, and we want to change. We don't stand apart from anybody else, or above or in judgment of anybody else. We all share the divine image, which is also to honour the good in both myself and in the would-be opponent.

Our evil may not be newsworthy but nonetheless deadly. I can see the same violence that I see in others also in me. Am I not using the same standard as ISIS or other groups are using, if I want to "destroy" whatever small in the other? Only when we are willing repeatedly to confess that we too have dirty hands, even when we work for peace, can we fully understand the hard task of peacemaking. Etty Hillesum beautifully writes, "Each of us must destroy in oneself all that we think we ought to destroy in others. Every atom of hate that we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable." We love by letting go. To truly love God in the world, we need to let go of our anger and violence however small it may be. The Psalmist speaks for all of us: "If you, O Lord, should mark our guilt, Lord, who would survive? But with you is found forgiveness: For this we revere you."