THE NEED TO ACCEPT THE REALITY OF EVIL

There is no place in this world for a criminal like Ariel Castro. This is what Judge Michael Russo told Castro at his sentencing after he pleaded guilty to over 900 criminal counts.

The charges against him stem from his abduction, rape and assault of three women he kept imprisoned in his home for 10 years. His crimes are the kind of insidious evil that cannot be imagined. Today, Castro is in the news again, because on Tuesday night, in his jail cell, he committed suicide. +Read More

When I read the article I had a strange feeling that whoever he was had been dead for a long time. And I wondered how we should feel about his death. It’s easy to say, “Good riddance.” If anyone deserved to die it is that guy. It wasn’t an execution; he chose it - so be gone. Understandably, this is the response some had.

Others have said the right response is to remember that this is a loss of life. And any loss of human life is a tragedy. No matter what Castro did in his lifetime, his death should be mourned.

I can understand the sentiment of both viewpoints – and feel torn between both myself. But both seem to be rooted in denial. More specifically they appear to deny, maybe even ignore, the reality of evil in our world. This should come as no surprise, we are great at practicing denial. We do all we can to keep the dark realities of our world at arm's length so we do not have to deal with them.

But then a person like Castro is all over the news, and we don’t know what to do. Perhaps this is why we do what comes naturally … we rage. I’m not talking about the righteous anger we should feel in a situation like this. I’m talking about the kind of unhealthy anger that causes us to make idle threats about what we’d do to a guy like him if we ever got our hands on him.

All the while we fail to see that anger is only fear coming out. Which raises the question, “What are we afraid of?” It’s possible the answer has to do with our inability to accept our world as it is – with all of it’s evil and darkness. When we are confronted with wickedness in our world it terrifies us, and we act out of that fear.

It may do us well to recognize the evil that is in our world, and do so armed with the confidence that even the smallest light is more powerful than the greatest darkness. We must remember that we were not given a spirit of fear, but one of strength and love.

In this, we can be honest about the darkness, and by doing so we are freed from anger and freed to grieve - even for the life and death of people like Ariel Castro. We can grieve over the reality of evil in our world. It’s possible that if we can accept the presence of evil, we will come to the place where we pray, cry out and work all the more toward that glorious day when there will be no place for evil in our world.