How can evil exist when our universe has been created by a loving God? What is evil? Person? Substance? Absence? Or what?
Evil is not a person.
Though a person might embody evil.
Evil is a conscious choice,
Or choices,
To turn away from good:
Choices, great and small,
Repeated and compounded.
Doing bad things and,
Perhaps worse,
Not doing what we should.
Evil has a social side.
Solitary sin is
Pre-mature evil.
Evil scores when it goes public,
And innocents are hurt.
Evil wins
When it recruits,
And others sign up,
And choose its hoary choices,
And spread the vile alert.
Evil likes connections,
Channels, media, linkages,
Hoping to go viral.
Evil isn’t cool
But excels at disguise.
In its PR campaigns,
It targets one-sided
But nonetheless worthy causes,
Preferring selective truths
And rarely telling lies.
Evil steals a march
When good folk relax.
Its militants
Busy underground
To spring a nasty coup.
It enlists the gullible,
The alienated, the downtrodden,
Greedily feeding on their anger,
To grab back something missing,
By violent waterloo.
Evil is exclusivist.
It divides people,
And creates ‘them and us’;
Others who are worth less,
And some who are worthless.
Evil appeals to the tribe,
Spawning racism and fascism,
Condoning cruelty,
Violence, war and death:
Dolce et decorum est.
Evil lurks in darkness
Because its fruit is vile,
Brooking no discernment,
And relying on
Brutish strength and malice.
Evil will quench
Any ray of light,
As it crushed the Lamb,
Though He rose again
Bright with Easter promise.
Evil was not created by God
But He well foresaw
Its ghastly harvest,
Still considering us
Worth His crucifixion.
Evil intruded on Eden,
And all are stung by sin.
Evil’s antidote is mercy:
Unleashed by
His fatal benediction.
Evil denies God,
Convinced there is no payback,
And thus closes
Its mind to redemption,
And healing of the past.
It latches onto to reason,
Yet its ‘hope’
Is patent nonsense,
And its outcome is clear:
Only Love will ever last.