Last night I was called to see an 86 years old person in Box 6. When I saw her I already saw that she was a neat person, simple, attentive, austere. Her papers and records were carefully kept inside a neat black folder with a zipper. After a while she told me that she was a nun. She was now not so much involved anymore, but she had been working in a school for abandoned children. There was some clear and undefined naiveté and sincerity about her, some kind of transparency,and her voice was soft and and there was truth in it. And now she was in need. I cannot help but always feel a kind of deep respect for truly religious people.After the shift I was going down the stairs, and I was thinking on her. And an idea came to my mind: it is not that a religion has made them good people, but goodness wanted to express and expressed itself through an available channel, in this case the channel of the available religion here, christianity.... but it can channel through many possible channels, religious or other......
The religion was not important, the important thing was goodness, which probably exists well before religions, manifesting through them......
I recommend you to watch the spanish movie "Camino". It is related to your post. :)
ReplyDeleteI have not seen that movie. Maybe you want to say something that you found interesting about it?, and then we can talk about that....
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this entry about goodness, a question comes to my mind: is there the opposite, evil?
ReplyDeleteGood question.
ReplyDeleteI remember I asked this same question to a person I respected a lot, and he said: "I do not know if evil exists, but I do know that goodness exists, and that is enough for me"...
But I want to put a counter question: Is evil a pure human phenomenon?, in other words, does evil exist in the universe, in nature, or is only human-generated?
I am truly asking this, I am not affirming or denying, maybe we could explore this?
Let's see, is an earthquake evil?, killing children and people, many of them. A tsunami. Is a black hole, chewing a whole galaxy, evil?
ReplyDeletelet's take your example of an earthquake. If I am involved in it, say my house is destroyed by it, then it is an evil force for me. But for the planet as a whole, maybe the earthquake is beneficial, it releases surface tensions, and it makes the whole earth crust more stable....
ReplyDeletecould it be that what we call evil is relative?
ReplyDeleterelative to the position with respect to the event?
What is "bad" for me, is good for something else?
are you implying that the concept of "evil" is related to the idea of individuality?
ReplyDeleteIf there would not be the concept of an individual separated of the rest, would there be the concept of "evil"?
ReplyDeleteIf we would consider, or rather feel, the whole field as a unity, one thing, the whole concept of "evil", it seems to me, could not exist
I see what you mean. If the whole thing is just one, nothing could be considered “evil”, but just a movement of this oneness. You need the idea of being a separate part to consider that you are benefited or hurt (by another part)
ReplyDeleteBut if the whole thing is one, does that mean that "goodness" also does not exist?
ReplyDeletedon´t you think that none of these questions could be answered just intellectually?
ReplyDeleteI mean, they could, but that is just words, a concept, the important thing would be to discover the truth of them, not just the sound of words that represent that truth...what do you think?
You have a point, I think an important one, but the question continues to be up
ReplyDeleteIt would be important to find the truth of whether goodness is behind it all, its the essence of it, and whether it still permeates it all
ReplyDelete