Thursday, June 5, 2008

Night


I read Night by Elie Wiesel today. I have read many books that cover the perspectives in WWII - those of prisoners and of liberators. Reading this brought 'night' and it's associated darkness home to me. No human being should have to suffer so, and yet millions did.

The images invoked in its reading have stayed with me, have sickened me. This cannot happen again, we must not let it. We must teach our children so they will not let it continue. Evil is an insidious thing. It creeps in, not under cover of night but in broad daylight, in the everyday things of life. It lets us get used to it, to see it as normal and acceptable. We may even embrace it a little so as not to look too unfashionable or stand-outish.

But better to stand out for Good than to blend in and passively support Evil. In the end there is nothing passive about Evil, it is no respecter of persons; it is an equal opportunity destroyer.

My heart is empty inside, I do not know how God could stand by and watch men suffer as they did, or how He could abide men being so horribly evil on such a grand scale without wiping us off the earth. And reading is nothing like living it - that people came out of those experiences still believing in an omnipotent, compassionate God is something I can barely comprehend.

It is one thing for me to believe in Him while I sit in my life of relative ease, but for people who suffer at the hands of others to remain unshaken, certain of their faith is another thing all together. Oh, to be so strong.