Article March 25, 2002 Issue

The Sentinel asks. . ."What is evil?"

Joshua Allen

Events happen in this world that reason and science and emotion and humanity cannot excuse or define, and only faith can stand between survival and submission.

I have found it hard to remember this, though. . . . I wanted to hide that afternoon in September, when images of New Yorkers staggering through ash shook my core. And I have shuddered again since that day, at news of events both related to and separate from 9/11. How can one continue, the newspapers seem to ask, when all signs seem to tell of evil's upper hand in this world?

Faith is our armor, the embrace of a warm blanket. . . . Evil is temporal and transient. Evil is disloyal, unaffiliated, fleeting. . . .

The circumstances of celebration and love have brought us together far more frequently than those of provocation and hate. Laughter resonates far stronger than the report of any gun. Sometimes faith is the small purchase I tenuously hold on to at the precipice; sometimes it is the solid ground underfoot. It is there, though, assuring me of beauty and glory, of the exaltation of right over wrong.

Joshua Allen
Boston, Massachusetts

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