I hate watching the news these days because it leaves me angry, frustrated, sad, fearful, and feeling overwhelmed by incidents of evil perpetrated by evil doers. Too often, it feels like our world has been completely overtaken by evil. But then I go to the grocery store and experience the everyday common courtesies of human beings just trying to live happy and peaceful lives. I enjoy spontaneous conversations with “masked” individuals in grocery store aisles or at the checkout line and the unexpected insertion of humorous life situations that often present themselves while I’m out and about. These little gems remind me that most people are decent, peace-loving, fair, and kind-hearted. I realize that most people value truth and reliable information. But I also realize that most people make up a silent majority who need to do much more to make our demands for goodness heard.
There’s this song from a children’s album titled, “Music Machine” that I often played for my kids when they were growing up. The lyrics were taken directly from Bible verse Romans 12:21 that reads, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” To this day, the melody and the words continuously ring in my head and have become an anthem for my life. Evil exists, but I have enough faith to believe that it can be overcome by good. So, what exactly is evil in my thinking and how do I define good?
I’ve come to define evil as the intentional and unprovoked perpetration of harm upon others. Evil doers are people driven by unfettered internal bloodthirst, sadism, masochism, greed, and self-interest. Evil doers inflict pain and suffering upon others with or without remorse. They have little to no self-control over their emotional need to see others suffer or to amass wealth, exert power, obtain fame or gain prestige at all costs. They are the devil incarnate who come only to kill, steal, and to destroy. Their tools are confusion, deceit, fearmongering, coercion, and violence. I believe the truly evil are rare individuals among us, but they are so outrageous in their behavior and so loud in their proclamations that they capture the headlines of our news media every day. In our collective desire to be entertained, we give them the biggest platform to efficiently spread their poison on television, at rallies, and through social media. Unfortunately, enough of us ushered these evil doers to prominent places of power in our government. And with their prominence they have sowed and then watered the seeds of evil in vulnerable hearts that had held evil in check for most of their lives. Evil begats evil and evil doers have entered the realm of our politics in recent years, threatening to tear our country apart.
I would classify Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carson, Matt Gatz, Margarie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Rupert Murdock and numerous others as evil doers whose unregulated thirst for wealth, power, prestige, and fame has driven them to water the seeds of racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia throughout the Republican Party under the guise of preserving a white morality that never embraced equality, liberty and justice for all. Jesus told us that we would recognize a tree by the fruit it bears. It is not difficult to recognize the fruit of these individuals. And sadly, their reach has extended to the white evangelical Christian church. Through persistent lies, conspiracies, and deception they have convinced many white evangelicals to push for a theocratic government that harms many and ignores the suffering of human beings while believing that they are acting on God’s behalf. History has shown us that this never ends well. They are following Trump rather than Jesus with their disdain for immigrants, the poor, and the powerless. When did Jesus ever embrace weapons (guns) instead of love?
I watched the Congressional hearing on abortion this past week, and it was disheartening to hear lawmakers talk past each other and repeat the same arguments over and over. The Republicans repeatedly mischaracterized Democrats as being pro-abortion people who want to kill babies just before they are born because of the gender or disability of the baby. If that were true, then that is evil. However, the reality is that Democrats are trying to protect the health of women and the bill seeks to acknowledge the rare medical need for a late term abortion. In another hearing a few weeks ago, they entertained testimony from a practicing OBGYN who testified that something has gone terribly wrong if there is an abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy and that doctors do not provide late term abortions on demand, nor do they kill babies just before they are born. The doctor had to continually correct the Republican talking points meant to mislead the public. It is evil to knowingly and intentionally harm women for political gain, but that is what the Republicans are doing. It is good to protect women and viable life.
And that’s what good is. Good is promoting the well-being of others. Do-gooders act in ways that promote the health, welfare and happiness of others. Again, we can tell a tree by the fruit it bears. The problem is that too many people do not bear any fruit at all. They act on the basis of convenience as they go about their daily lives. They aren’t evil doers, nor are they do-gooders. They simply mind their own business as though they were an island unto themselves. If they witness someone in need, they simply walk by, ignoring the silent plea or sometimes even the loud plea for assistance. They wear invisible headsets and blinders so they will not be bothered. They are apathetic, distracted by their own needs, or simply disinterested in the plight of others.
These are the people whom I hope to reach because they can help reverse the tide of evil we are facing. This is their fight as well. The people on the fence can be activated into action to overcome evil with good if they are recruited by do-gooders.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve launched the Fully Present Better Human Project for the sole purpose of further empowering and enabling do-gooders to inspire fence-sitters to become fully present better humans who take small actions in their everyday lives to help overcome the evil that is now all around us. Small collective actions of good can improve our lives. Together, as fully present better humans we can overcome evil and create the kind of society that we want to live in.
My website is now available and the products to help promote the project are available for purchase to support the efforts. Visit the website at www.fullypresentbetterhuman.com and leave your email for access to the monthly newsletter. I also started a Facebook and Instagram under Fully Present Better Human. Taking a moment to like the page will help me reach more people, especially those fence-sitters. We don’t need to be perfect humans, just better humans who are fully present. Together, we can overcome evil with good.