“Return to no person evil for evil,” words penned by an ancient Saint, are as cutting and relevant as they ever were.
“Cutting” because they can stop evil in its tracks, halt its progression. Relevant because we are all, at least anyone with a smidgen of insight and a dash of humility, will admit we are faced with evil options (self-centeredness, self-gratifying motives, win at all costs attitudes, dog eat dog philosophies) with regularity.
To be so is so “normalized” it’s even taught in leadership schools and business schools. Retaliation and vengeance, may be common, even instinctive, but are usually unhelpful if any healing is to occur.
They are agents of escalation.
Refusing to honor evil with a return act of evil is likely to be an agent of de-escalation.
“Return to no person evil for evil” has astounding power. It empowers victims and robs evil of its momentum.
Where and when will this craziness end? None of us knows. How will it end? None of us knows. I can only hope that vastly different challenges we all face will end with growth for you and for me because we walked the dangerous road of refusing to play tit-for-tat.
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