PASSIONATE RATIONS

I just read about a brother and sister who were reunited after 66 years of separation. The Nazis took her to a labor camp in 1942. She was 17. He was 7.

This caused me to ponder the nature of evil, for I can think of little that is more evil than genocide or more horrible than its aftermath.

We read every day about the exquisite ways in which we can be terrible to each other. I am constantly perplexed and appalled.

It’s easy for me, living my relatively comfortable life in a relatively stable country to sit back and think I’m better than all of that. But who really knows until put to the test?

It’s a test I hope never to face for I could never live with myself if I failed.

So many of the people I meet every day seem like decent, everyday, folks, so I remain awash in confusion. How do these things happen? How can we let them?

But it’s impossible to confront all the terrors of the world. It’s easier to go about one’s daily life focusing on what we have to get done, ignoring the rest. And there’s the problem. In the fight against AIDS there is a powerful slogan: Silence = Death.

That is the crux of it, isn’t it?

Luckily, there are always voices fighting to be heard above evil’s hurricane, and there are people there to help put things back together when it has passed. This, as much as anything, brought me to tears when I read the article.

The American Red Cross Holocaust and War Victims Tracing Center works tirelessly to reunite the families that fell victim to Hitler’s evil dream. After all, one can’t really contemplate evil without reference to the good. And thank goodness for that.

It is my hope that the collective mass of the tiny good deeds humankind puts out into the world every day will win the battle at some point.

For now, I’ll continue to read the paper, watch the news and wonder.