evil

(canna--taken with my phone's camera)

I've been thinking about evil a lot lately--mostly because it seems I keep running into it. I've been having some conversations with friends about evil and suffering, too.

I'm going to give you the abbreviated version of what I've been thinking because I seem to be short on words these days.

One of my recent conversations had to do with why does God create (or allow) suffering. (Bear with me because this is related.) My real answer to this is, "I don't know." I don't really think that God created suffering in the direct sense. What God did create is us and gave us free will...and we created the rest. In order to stop us from doing some of those things that bring about undesirable outcomes (evil and / or suffering), we would be stripped of our free will.

Believe me, that would not be a happy making event. This became clear to me in some of my recent encounters with insurance companies and banks (just to name a couple of categories). They arbitrarily create rules that are known only to them, won't share the rules, and seem to change them capriciously. The effect on me is one of taking away my choice--akin to taking away my free will. In other words, when the powerful entity is controlling, the one being controlled has no free will.

When I am being controlled, I erupt. Not always outwardly. Sometimes I implode. My point is, I think if God restricted me (took away my free will) I might not like it much more than I do when corporations take away my choice.

Let me give you an example. A few years ago I attended a training. During that training for reasons I couldn't understand, I found myself wanting to kill something (metaphorically, of course). I was cranky and irritable and I just wanted to fight or do something really negative. Later I learned that the leader of the training had created an energy container that would not allow any negative energy. Huh?

So what happened? Was I acting out the negativity that was being suppressed? Was I picking up all the energy that wasn't "allowed" there? I'm not sure. But I do know that "not allowing" it didn't make the negativity go away.

While we might think that taking away free will and only allowing "love and light" would be the solution to evil and suffering, I don't think it would work. At least not at this stage of the development of humanity. It's too late for that type of intervention.

We have to figure out the solution. It's up to us.

I'll tell you this: Evil exists and while I don't have the answer, I do believe it is contrary to our original design. On the other hand, love only works when we choose it. And Love is more than a feeling. It's a decision.

(Now aren't you glad I gave you the abbreviated version?)