By all accounts , Littleton, Colorado, is a good place, one where violent acts just don't happen. But a few weeks ago, two teenagers who were identified with a group of local misfits killed or wounded more than thirty people. Some say the cause of such incidents is "moral poverty" or a "cultural virus." If so, what will eliminate the poverty? What will heal the virus? Most important of all, what will stop the killing?

A first step is to refuse to ignore evil. The second is to love enough to stop it. Many times, those who engage in violent crimes have tended to be loners, misfits, people whom the majority chooses to ignore or even to joke about. Sometimes these individuals have caring parents, but still choose an antisocial lifestyle. The misfits are not the evil, but the belief that anyone can be ignored or neglected with impunity does open the door for evil behavior—for an insistence on being noticed, for the buildup of anger that apparently demands detonation.

This detonation can be prevented if we're willing to do more than shake our heads in disbelief or dwell on the heartbreak of seeing young people suffer. We disarm the evil as we embrace each community, including our own, in God-based love. Only this love is powerful enough and strong enough to truly repair the breaches that lead people to feel separated from each other and from society.

Sometimes such effort demands a lot, but Christ Jesus' example shows that it is worth the work. One Gospel account tells of a man "with an unclean spirit" who lived among the tombs and was violent toward himself and others (see Mark 5:1–20). Jesus did not ignore him. Instead, he restored him to "his right mind," as the Bible puts it. The result was a man returned to usefulness and a danger eliminated from that community.

This Christly approach requires that each child, each man or woman, be seen as an individual, as truly the creation of God. Instead of viewing people en masse, or shrugging our shoulders over them, we need to observe spiritual qualities in each individual we meet. This self-discipline strengthens our own conviction of good, and it also helps those we meet live up to their highest ability. At times, it brings about change in a community.

A friend of mine lives next to apartment buildings that house families with children of all ages. When she first moved to the area, many of the children seemed to be on their own, starved for notice—positive or negative. Parents, many struggling to make ends meet, had little time to spend with them.

Watching these young people wearily going to school each day or hanging around the apartments' parking lot, aroused my friend's compassion. She found herself loving them and wanting something better for them, without being able to define what that "something" was. What she did was to pray, to know in her heart that they were not neglected but were being taken care of by God, their true Father.

Two changes occurred. First, the school located at the end of the street began to give parenting lessons. Then, she noticed that instead of going to school on their own, the children were being accompanied at least part of the way by one or more parents. The difference in the children was significant. Instead of weary, worried faces, they wore confident smiles.

Inclusion, instead of exclusion. A refusal to ignore evil, along with an embracing in love of those in need. The school included the parents, who in turn began to include the children in a new and caring way. And the children were blessed.

It is not, of course, always that simple. As a child, Mary Baker Eddy faced down a lunatic who had come into the schoolyard of the academy she was attending. The other children fled, but Mary Baker (as she was then known) refused to run from the club-brandishing man. Gently, she was able to lead him from the schoolyard, and no one was harmed (Sibyl Wilbur, The Life of Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 33–34). With this experience and others in her background, she was later able to say firmly: "I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievementsas its results. . . . Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 250).

Active love for our communities and schools, whether or not we have children in them, can make an enormous difference. This love is not an abstraction or a "feel good" kind of experience. It is a love that reaches out to troubled young people, that builds bridges to those who are alone or who feel left out. It is a love which says that there are no God-forsaken people or places anywhere. It is a love that includes, never excludes.

Such active love isn't actually a lot of work, because loving is natural to all of God's creation. One of the reasons it may seem like work is that we get drawn in to the humdrum pattern of our days and spend more time on a mental "automatic pilot" than we realize. Yet as we get more practice in loving our community, we gain strength to reject evil, no matter what form it takes, and we see more good in action. When we do this, we can expect, even demand, change for the better.

The incentive for loving this much is that ultimately it saves not just some, but all of the children.