The Sensation of Evil

" Evil has visited this community [of Newtown, CT]." -- Governor Dannel Malloy, of Connecticut, December 15, 2012.

On December 14, 2012, at approximately 9:40 a.m., a young man of twenty years entered Sandy Hook Elementary School by force. He proceeded to methodically shoot and kill the school's principal, the school psychologist, several teachers, and twenty students in kindergarten and first grade.

This is the worst mass shooting at an elementary school in America's history. Today, our nation mourns. Even our President is in tears, and he says, "Our hearts are broken."

What is this, except Evil?

And yet, we create violent video games for our children-- and call it "fun".

We all go out to watch gory movies, that cost multi-millions of dollars to produce, and we call it "entertainment".

Evil seems to us so cool. So racy. So edgy. So exhilarating.

I have spent a good part of my life facing down Evil: suffering black eyes, shedding blood; enduring attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, strangulation; enduring, as a child, deliberate infliction of hunger and cold, deprivation of medical attention, withdrawal of human affection, abandonment at my hour of life and death. Much of this Evil came from my own family. . . .

I have become exquisitely sensitive to Evil. I can feel it coming, deep inside me, before it even occurs.

When I was in graduate school, far from home, studying for final exams, I closed my books late at night and tried to relax. But sleep would not come. A grave sense of Evil came lurking in my apartment. Then a feeling of vast peace, a feeling of strength that I had never felt before. I thought it was a hallucination, caused by all the stress of exams. Deeply shaken, I finally was able to fall asleep.

About a month later, a knock came upon my door. It was not my next door neighbor, as I had assumed. It was a stranger with a knife. He assaulted me and tried to kill me. Evil had entered my home. I had had a premonition of Evil. And an omen of Survival, through God's Strength and Grace.

I did survive. After that, my healing was a long time in coming. But along the way, I remembered the time, a year or so before the assault, when I had bought a new pair of silver earrings. The day I bought them, I started to cry and I could not stop. A classmate asked me what was wrong? I said, I do not know. I felt despair and a foreboding sense of sorrow.

Those were the earrings I was wearing on the day that I was assaulted. I never wore them again. I had had a premonition of Evil. I put the earrings away in my safe box.

For the last couple of weeks, I have not been myself. I have felt deep despair again. Even close friends noticed that I was "off". On Friday, December 14, I was at a prayer meeting in the morning. I found myself offering prayers of thanksgiving that I am alive, that I am breathing. I thanked God for every time that I have cheated death. I prayed for the safety of my son in school. When I got home, I switched on the TV and heard the awful news about Newtown.

We live in a Culture of Death. I know Evil when I see it. It is not a game. It is not entertainment. It is not cool. Nor is it fantasy. OR a joke.

We must call Evil what it is: Evil. Only if we recognize it, and face it head on, can we fight it.

I have learned to be "open" to Evil.  If we can combat Evil by being open to the Holy Spirit, why can we not also combat Evil by shining our light on it, by calling it out, as the deadly danger that it is? We need to sense Evil from our very own personal depths-- to feel it viscerally and to recognize its horror.

In the face of Evil, we ask, 'Why, God why?' I  have, over the years, wracked my brain trying to explain Evil, or come to grips with it. Lord knows, with my family, I have tried. Oh, I can come up with explanations: mental illness, deep seated anger, despair, addiction, and so on. . . .

BUT-- Even if those "explanations" are valid, and even if I try with all my soul to forgive, there can never be an adequate reason for Evil. Explanations begin to sound like excuses. And, Evil just IS.

There is nothing wrong, and everything right, about being shocked at Evil. The last time I can think of in history, when men systematically hunted down and killed women and children, was during the Holocaust. And modern humankind vowed that would never happen again.

There is a serious danger in "normalizing" Evil. There is an attitude today that, 'Oh, well, evil is everywhere; everyone has experienced it in life. We all go through this.'   I fear that this attitude means giving up on the battle. I never want to see a world where Evil is the norm.

Preventing Evil means to "be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent." [ Luke 21: 34-36].

Preventing Evil means making Good the norm. It means not expecting Death and Evil. It means desiring, creating, expecting Good. It means desiring, expecting, longing for God.

In that moment in my graduate apartment, when I had the premonition of Evil, I also felt the Peace that "passeth all understanding." This comes from Saint Paul, who said," Your kindness shall be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." [Philippians 4: 4-7].

We can have Goodness and Peace. We need to pray for it, to ask for it, to demand it.

[Related Postings: "Prayers For Tucson",  January 10, 2011; "The Replication of Evil", November 8, 2012; " Advent Defies Death", December 16, 2012.]

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.