FAST FOOD (AD 2019): Twenty-Ninth Helping

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil

to one who is striking at the root. -Thoreau

Most of what is most important in existence takes place on the invisible side.”

–Rabbi Abraham Heschel

To chip away only at the visible side of the iceberg of evil is to leave evil as powerful and as destructive as ever in the human condition.. It is to support the status quo of evil, even if protesting against it. To effectively overcome evil, a person while chipping away at the evil on the visible side of existence must simultaneously chip away at the evil on the non-visible side of existence.

It is the evil on the invisible side of existence, which is the source that relentlessly feeds and sustains evil on the visible side of existence. Diminishing and eliminating the non-visible dimension of the iceberg of evil can only be achieved by one method, namely, doing acts that chip away at visible evil with Christlike love of friends and enemies.

Only God and the power of God can completely conquer evil—and death. Only the power and wisdom of God can vanquish the gargantuan power of evil that lay behind all visible evil acts but is not visible. Jesus as presented in the Gospels is God, the “Word (logos) made flesh, the Messiah, Lord and Savior. He knows and taught the Way to subdue evil, the Way of Resurrection, the Way to Eternal Life, the Way to eternal communion with God for one and all. To again quote St. Peter, from the time when many disciples were leaving Jesus because His teachings were thought to be too difficult and Jesus asked, “Are you also going to leave me?” Peter replied, “Lord, where can we go, you have the words to eternal life.”

The littlest thought, word or deed in the spirit and model of  “new commandment” love is the Way and is what must be present if a human being, regardless of what he or she is doing, is in reality to undermine the power of evil in him or herself and in the human condition. To only hack at the branches of evil is to perpetuate evil, even if one is simultaneously denouncing it. “New commandment” love strikes at the root. It is the only reality that evaporates the invisible root of evil while simultaneously trying to make  visibly evil branches good and good fruit bearing.

Of course, since “new commandment” love is “to love as I have love,” it must be a nonviolent  Christlike love for all in all circumstances, since this is the love that “I” historically lived unto His last breath and commanded His disciples to live until their last breaths.

-Emmanuel Charles McCarthy