For a while, my blog posts will be vignettes. None of the people in these vignettes will be one specific person I have known, but I hope the figures represent real people in real situations. My purpose is to invite empathy because lack of empathy opens the door and holds it open for all manner of evils.
At its base, evil means harm, and in the Bible, such is frequently its meaning – harm in contrast with benefit or blessing. Evil can also go deeper, festering into callousness and oozing out as malice. The lust for revenge arises from bitterness nurtured in a darkness of the soul.
Self-righteous judgment excuses, justifies (falsely), and even sanctifies evil. We tell ourselves it is right to hate “them” because “they” deserve our scorn. We label them disgusting or simply push them out of our empathic range as something other, something lesser, than we are. They are alien, strange, threatening, and unworthy, and we don’t want to understand them or feel any sympathy for them.
Empathy opens the door and holds it open for compassion. Then it is possible that someone who has been scorned can look into the eyes of an enemy and see there a friend. Then maybe we can find the humanity we have refused to share.