Evil

I’m not that angry anymore. But I was very angry. Angry at what I think is evil.

‘Oh, there is no such thing as absolute truth or absolute evil. It is a social construct. Everything is relative according to the context’. Such a view collapses when faced with the real face of evil, says Os Guinness. For example, when one meets with cases such as the horror of Auschwitz and cries ‘God damn it’; he/she means it. Evil is that repulsive. And the view of good or bad as a relative concept, or a social construct, crumbles. 

My parents told me that as they work in the village and set up projects, they face lots of difficulties. There are land boundary disputes, and people trying to grab what we have. There were instances when we have to buy the same plot of land twice. I’m not sure if my parents have claimed other people’s land. It is possible that either party can be confused at times about the boundary stones if the plot is in the think jungles. But I am sure that my parents won’t have claimed what they know is not theirs. I am sure of that. It is not necessarily because dad was a Pastor or Mom is a deaconess but in all areas of life, I know them to be truthful persons.

But there were these instances when people would destroy what we have, not for their gain but simply to destroy what we have set up. It is not out of any selfish ambition. It is worse. The only intention is to not let others have it. Plantations well inside our boundary have been uprooted. Why? Because they can’t stand us having those trees!

And last Saturday, we witnessed two things which made me quite angry. This tree (photo) was planted by my father thinking that it is in the boundary line. There are several trees along its line. The boundary is clear. This tree is along a certain bend where there is a possibility of confusing the boundary line. My dad could have been wrong, although he had planted it as per his knowledge. Instead of approaching my dad and saying that we might have planted in his land, he chopped this off. This is a precious tree and we have tended it for about 4 years. He has no project in this side of the village land. If it should fall in his plot, we ought to willingly give him the beautiful tree. He simply chopped it (A couple of years back, my dad bought a piece of land from someone. And we have planted trees similar to this. Someone else claimed that it was his and that it was wrongly sold to us. While the legal dispute was ongoing, the second person uprooted all the plants that we have planted. Let me not go into the details but it ended with us having to buy the plot twice. And none was punished for the uprooted plants).

And this was another instance we saw the other day (photo). A couple of years back, there was a person who was stealing wood from our land and he was stopped. Now, there is another person who had cut the big trees that we have been preserving, in the same plot. It was not a case of mistake by ignorance. The boundary line is too far away. And we later learned that this person was by told by a herdsman that the plot was ours because we have left our marks all over the place. But he did it anyway, and when he was told again later through a different source, he came saying sorry, and that he had mistaken the plot because someone told him that it is his. We ought to seek justice and see that evildoers are punished. But we also know that justice often slips through our fingers in this side of the eschaton.

We identify sin easily when it comes to sexual immorality, murder, or addiction to alcohol. But what do you say to this kind of attitude which cannot stand the success of other people? What about willful destruction of other people’s property, not only for selfish gain, but to harm and destroy other people? Isn’t this evil?