So what’s it all about, Ralphie? Is it just for the moment we live? Surely there is a greater purpose than planting one foot in front of the other and breathing the air that we breathe? Yes, sometimes that’s all we need — and to love you — but we’re certainly not here merely to take up space and eat bags and bags of potato chips. And I apologize, I won’t call you Shirley again.
On this morning, when the sun is shining and the snow is melting, I pause and reach for words, and there they are, shiny and new, but not so new that I haven’t heard them before or even written them before in some fashion. Here we are, under the sun, and in point of fact there is indeed nothing new.
That does not, and should not, preclude us from reminding ourselves and our neighbors of the oft-repeated truths about this world. We are here to love our neighbors with patience and kindness and all of the joy we can muster — and in the face of being alive, we ought to muster all kinds of joy, wouldn’t you think? We are fragile and short-lived creatures, little more than a morning mist that is here but gone by noon, and yet we are also hardy creatures who are hard to put down if we’re willing to stand up to the bullies.
I feel like I’m making sense here, but I’m not sure I’m getting through — does that make sense? All I really know in this moment is that life is worth living even when the sunshine feels like an illusion, because it’s proven every morning that light shines again even after the very darkest night.
And so rejoice, and again I say rejoice, because darkness never lasts, and if evil seems to triumph, it is a meaningless triumph because evil cannot prevail for long. It’s part of its nature to be defeated in the end, although the end can seem a long way off sometimes.
Am I naive? Am I foolish to hold out hope? Some days it may seem so, but sure as spring follows winter and day follows night, the good triumphs over evil at the end of every road.
What’s that you say? “But eventually we cycle back to winter, and night always follows day”? “Darkness and light are brothers who need each other”? “Good needs evil and evil needs good”?
I can’t argue with those first two points — but good “needs” evil? I think not. Evil may hone the good as resistance sharpens a knife, but there is no “need” for the fruits of evil. Surely goodness and mercy are elements of a well-lived life. A life can be well-lived without ever encountering evil, but the opposite is not true.
Light and dark, winter and spring, make good metaphors for good and evil, but they are inexact metaphors. A person does not need a dark side to balance the light. The more good there is in the world, the healthier we are. While dark is inevitable, in the sense of sunset balancing sunrise, goodness need not be balanced by evil to thrive.
