The juxtaposition was unmistakeable and macabre. A program on the Lippizaner stallions on TV, and a news report video showing the burning alive of the Jordanian pilot captured by ISIS. The beauty of the Austrian countryside, the beautiful eighteenth century Viennese palace in which the horses perform, contrasted with the ugly demonic demonstration of hateful evil. It is tempting to ask how such beauty and ugliness, such goodness and evil can exist side by side, except for one thing: every human being on this planet makes the choice between good and evil. Evil has no being of its own. It must be embodied in a person. Remove the person, and you may have bad and good, but not evil. People are making choices every day, choices that prove to be evil or good. We live in a world that has been horribly, tragically disfigured by evil, by choices that partake of evil or by good. It is easy to identify evil when it is so blatantly demonstrated, but how often we partake of it in lesser, but no less damning ways when we ingest violence in the media, overlook injustice in our neighborhoods, ignore poverty, greed, and lust. Every day, we move towards the Good or the Evil.
Goodness abounds all around us, imperfect, a dim reflection of the goodness of God himself. Evil is there, too, but as bad as it can be, by definition, it cannot match the goodness. And yet, we must choose which to which we will give our attention. I choose the good, am grateful to know enough to do so, and to have received the grace to see it.
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