Overcome Evil by Good

Scrolling through some Facebook posts in a hotel room in Philadelphia, I began to read of a federal enslavement case unfolding in Ashland, Ohio. I leave home for a week and Ashland makes the national news - what's going on?

Growing up on a quiet street of working-class families in a suburb of Buffalo, I wasn't exactly sheltered, but gained most of my knowledge of the more disreputable side of life by sneaking a peak at the True Confessions magazines while my mother sat under the hair dryer at the beauty parlor. In my world, most people were decent. They cut their grass, took care of their kids, and went to church on Sunday - except for the Catholics, who could go to Mass on Saturday night and sleep in on Sundays, a good trade-off for having to eat fish on Fridays.

In my more than 35 years of involvement with the Salvation Army, I learned that while most people are decent, some people are not, and in their non-decentness, they inflict serious harm on others, whether stemming from their own pain, psychological disorder, or just plain meanness.

As we traveled east this past week, we traced the path of our early Salvation Army days, from the training school in Suffern, New York, to Dover, New Jersey, our first assignment. We also traveled to Philadelphia, where we served in the Roxborough neighborhood and then in North Philadelphia,just blocks from where Bill Cosby grew up in the midst of Fat Albert and the gang. In those settings, we saw more than our fair share of man's inhumanity to man - gender inclusive.

Along with a mouth-watering cheesesteak, Larry and I shared a gazillion memories during the week of travel, some hilarious, some endearing, and some heart-breaking. As we reflected on the people caught up in the heart-breaking stories, we wondered out loud if there was something we could have done if only we'd known. That tends to be a common theme when the lives of others crumble around us. Didn't we see the abusive gleam in the eyes of our neighbor, the plea for help in the eyes of the child in our classroom, the despair of our suicidal neighbor? Why didn't we see?

Sometimes we did see, but the answers weren't clear-cut. How could we protect the most fragile in our midst? Should the family be reported? Should the child be removed from the home? Who do we believe? Could the support of the caring professional, the compassionate church, and an embracing community turn the tide? We saw it happen as people beat back the demons and pursued their dreams. We want to believe it can happen again, but sometimes the world comes crashing down instead.

When we read the headlines in the Times-Gazette, or hear the anguish in the pastor's office or the altar of prayer, we can't help but wonder why. Theologians speak of depravity stemming from the fall of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, psychologists identify the disorders that strike seemingly without rhyme or reason, and scientists point to the mysteries of DNA and to epigenetic modifications to the genomes as nature and nurture blend in mysterious ways. Often as the tragic stories unfold, a combination of these factors led the players to their thirty seconds of sordid fame.

So what do we do? Once again, our quiet community is shaken by the actions of a few. Following the attack at the Boston Marathon, Pope Francis drew upon the apostle Paul's words from Romans 12:21: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good," as Francis prayed that"all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good, working together to build an ever more just, free and secure society."

That's the message that pulsed through our memory journey, the faces of goodness shining in the darkness. Now, in the shadow of Ashland's own story of the darkness of a few, we ask the questions, but then we do what we can as together, we plant seeds of goodness and keep the porch lights on, sustaining a just, free and secure home together.