Chapter 52: Where Were You?

“Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:21

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of evil attempting a coup.
Never going to work.

Sometimes evil clothes itself “in the name of God's will” and towers crumble, lives fall apart, and “one nation under God” doesn't exactly feel so “under God.”

The energy of absolutely everything, the energy of God, is an omniscient force that permeates and transforms all in its path. And everything is in its path.

No evil, terrorism, genocide, torture, or barbarism can ever be bigger than the context of good, the energy of the justice and love of God. The vibration of His presence encompasses all evil. God does not will evil – humans do.

But human perception latches on to evil and we allow ourselves to be afraid of its impact on our lives. We live in fear that it will return and ruin us again and again. Reasonable; it will return over and again throughout our history. Evil's past, present, and future are certain.

Ironically, the idea of overcoming evil is redundant. It has already been overcome. Its resolution has already manifested.

We ask one another: “Where were you when the towers were hit?”
It makes me imagine that people asked one another: “Where were you when Christ was crucified?”

We all love stories. We love to hear them and we love to tell them.
Christ told the story of good overcoming evil centuries ago. It's a story we hear over and over and one we strive to understand and duplicate in the narrative we create in our own lives. The worst possible evil is a recurring character in our stories, both in those that are true and in those that are fiction.

The story of September 11, 2001 reassures us that good does overcome evil. Humankind is hard wired to become heroes when called to be. We are called to raise the American flag out of the ashes of the collapsed towers. We raise the rubble to find survivors.

Christ stamped our capacity for goodness into our DNA on the day He sacrificed His life for our salvation. He conquered evil for us. All we have left to do is resonate and adhere to His energy of goodness no matter what evil befalls us. He graced us with hero capacity, which is why, when people do heroic things, they don't see it as heroic — they see it as nothing extraordinary, but as an innately human response.

Every time we ask one another: “Where were you?” we are really asking for another cathartic experience of the story of good overcoming evil. Regardless if we find that catharsis in the thoughts or actions of the person recounting the story, we relive the horror followed by the redemption. We get another opportunity to resolve our internal conflict – the temptation of evil and our longing for goodness to prevail.

Perishing from and overcoming evil are one in the same. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the image on the Shroud of Turin, an icon of suffering, dying, and transcending evil in the peaceful repose of Jesus Christ.