Thoughts

I wondered whether I should actually put anything down today since an unspeakable tragedy has occurred in my home state. I don't think there's anything more unseemly than capitalizing on a tragedy, so I hesitated. Still, I find jotting this down to be somehow necessary and therapeutic, so here goes.

As I'm sure everyone is well aware, a gunman ended many lives in a grammar school in the community of Newtown this morning. I'm quite familiar with Newtown. I used to work there. I go there two nights a week. I was there last night. It's a pretty terrific place.

To the point: there always has been and there always will be evil in the world. It's alive. It's active. And it's very, very real. Fortunately, few of us resort to the extremes the killer did this morning, but we've all found ourselves in its grasp at one time or other.

People will say the assassin was sick. He was sick. If not psychologically, then most certainly spiritually. The experts are already out there arguing for ways to prevent such a nightmare from occurring again. They might be right. They might not be. For once I'm not interested in arguing politics or social issues.

What I am interested in is arguing that, although there is evil out there and although it's very powerful, there's also goodness to be found out there, too. And that goodness is stronger than anything evil can dish out.

Even on days like today.