Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the first lesson of history is the good of evil.” A contrary statement, but one that describes the impetus that must often take place to move people and nations to action. Such a time is now.
As children, we read stories of heroes and villains pitted in the struggle between good and evil. Cinderella and her evil stepmother; the heroes in the “Narnia” series and the White Witch; Mowgli and Shere Khan in “The Jungle Book,” Peter Pan and Captain Hook. On and on. Rarely was evil defeated without sacrifice.
Perhaps we were more attuned to the struggle between such opposing forces as children, our perceptions stored away with other childish things. Yet, forces for good and for evil play out every day in our lives. For evidence, we need look no further than the daily news.
It is tempting to deny this. That is, until evil becomes an imminent threat, too close, too powerful. Yet, how much better to confront it before it runs rampant — as in Hitler’s Nazi Germany, as now in Ukraine.
We have a son, adopted from St. Petersburg, Russia. He was brought home just weeks before Vladimir Putin abruptly closed adoptions to the United States, an act of political retaliation for freezing Russian assets.