What Evil Will Never Overcome

It is probably fair to say that you’ve run across one in your lifetime. It’s probably even fair to say you’ve run across one no matter have young you may be.  If you’re lucky, you’ve run across more than one, but as they are so rare, chances of finding more than one are scant.

62 years and I’ve only come in contact with a couple. You at once recognize them – not as some long lost friend or lover but as a soul who you’re instantly fascinated with, instantly attracted to, instantly even enchanted with, for reasons that only your heart knows.

It takes your intellect – your mind, to catch up with your heart in understanding them.  What is it that makes these rarest of human beings so spell-binding? Simple and unassuming – they are not flashy in the modern sense, have no aura of power about themselves – often times they are the most neglected in terms of popularity amongst the crowds.  If one is looking for them, they are nearly impossible to find. But they don’t hide – they are there for any to see.

The funny or maybe sad thing of it all, is that one doesn’t quite grasp the beauty of these souls until they’ve disappeared from our lives. More often than not, they didn’t disappear from our lives for any ill reasons, but for reasons you can’t remember…still, you find yourself forever remembering them.

These souls…those who are kind – they are what disarms evil. Maybe it has just been my encounters with these extraordinary souls – but they seem to have an other worldly ability to vanquish evil. They do nothing other than exhibit one of the rarest of virtues – kindness in word, in deed, in actions – given to all, with no expectations of receiving anything in return.

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.” ~ Mark Twain

Maybe angelic entities, maybe wise time-traveling souls or just maybe humans who “get it” –  I only wish there were more of these souls about. I wish to find more of the “kernels of human kindness” within me that these souls seem to possess in abundance.

“My faith has been tempered in Hell. My faith has emerged from the flames of the crematoria, from the concrete of the gas chamber. I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man’s meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer.” ~ Vasily Grossman ~ “Life and Fate”

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Tonight’s musical offering:

Sarabande in D minor by G.F. Händel

Copernicus Chamber Orchestra & Horst Sohm (Dirigent/Conductor)

Photo credit: http://www.unsplash.com/@m_maaris

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