The phenomenon of good and evil has been at the core of all great literature. Shakespeare, Goethe, St Paul, are among those who toiled and laboured with our ability to soar to great goodness, but also to plummet to the depths of extraordinary evil.
Sebastian Faulks, in his latest novel, Charlotte Gray, paints an extraordinary picture of the cruelty that went on at a Nazis concentration camp - the unbelievable savagery meted out to children by "ordinary" human beings, who went home in the evening to their families. But he also describes the bravery and courage, the sheer goodness of those who were involved in the resistance of occupied France.
They were people like us.
Anyone touched by evil can hardly be expected to realise the heights of goodness to which human beings can soar. It can indeed be difficult to get carried away about our propensity to goodness and sainthood. But, believe it or not, that is the invitation and the challenge offered us in the Christian message and made real by the life and death of Jesus. "For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved." (John. 3:17.)
We can discuss for ever the reality of goodness and evil. We can try to work out why some people do good acts and others commit bad acts. Why does one person end up in prison and another not? There are all sorts of psychological and sociological interpretations of why people act as they do. Our backgrounds, our social and genetic make-up play significant roles in who and what we are.
A central tenet of the Christian belief is that we are saved through the amazing love and goodness of God. And that certainly is a mouthful. To many it might sound a madness. It is through God, through the salvific power of the risen Lord that all things are made possible for us. All our goodness is but a shadow of the goodness of God, but it is to that we aspire. It is so easy to talk about the evil and badness that is around us. But there is also great goodness. If we can keep repeating those words of Jesus, "For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but so that through him the world might be saved", perhaps we can capture the moments of greatness, beauty and goodness about us and allow ourselves to be inspired by them rather than concentrating on the evil and badness. It's easy to see all that's wrong. It requires courage and initiative to turn things around and point towards what's good. And part of the Christian madness is to believe that we are made for goodness, that we share in the beauty of God.
We have hundreds of miles of coastline and countryside. Walking it, becoming familiar with it and all that is beautiful is bound to make us sensitive to goodness and beauty. When we experience love we get intimations of the possibilities that are open to us.
All the time evil lurks. We read and see the terrible things that are done and yet we can never forget the words of Jesus. He has come not to condemn but to bring the good news.
Just as we cannot rid ourselves of this mortal coil we cannot rid the world of evil. But we have been made for goodness and love. The grace of God opens the key of beauty for us. The evil that was perpetrated in the concentration camps is plainly unspeakable. Human beings have a history of committing the most heinous of crimes. Yet, the possibility and the reality of goodness calls on us and we can respond. The goodness of God is forever calling on us and as a result of the resurrection that pull of God has to be the ultimate call on us.
When we are privileged to see and experience beauty, whether it be the sea, or love, or amazing acts of bravery and courage, we are seeing but just a glimpse of God's goodness.
Chasing goodness is the challenge of a lifetime.
M.C.