CONTORTED THOUGHTS

I had occasion today to think about good and evil.

I know that some don't believe in these concepts. I do.

And I noticed that good and evil belong to a set of concepts the definitions of which may be that "b" is the absence of "a".

Darkness is the absence of light energy. Cold is the absence of heat energy. (I'm no philosopher, so I can't quite sort out if this equation allows the elements to be properly referred to as opposites.)

And therefore it seems to me that in such cases, proving the existence of one of the concepts serves also to prove the other's.

Remember back in school when doing math problems for homework or a test the teacher would always require one to "show your work"? Well, being a bit distracted as I am today my brain has failed in three separate attempts to "show my work" in arriving at the conclusion in the above paragraph. But, I'm running with it anyway.

Now...where were we. Oh...good and evil.

The last 24 hours have been extraordinary. My email shows me that prayers are being said on my behalf...on CPT Patti's behalf, indeed on all our troops behalf by folks whom I've never met. One email contained the actual prayer itself.

Spontaneous hugs and a close, gazing of the eyes accompanied by a sincere "so...how are you doing" from folks whose names I can't quite recall.

My telephone has rung more times in 24 hours than it has in all of 2004. Literally.

I answered my cell phone Thursday morning. "Tim?", the female voice I had never heard asked, "This is Sarah at tryingtogrok."

It was only after reading her account of this call that it dawned on me that some might not quite understand how it is that I'm on a first name basis, and have given my telephone number to a woman I've never met nor spoken to who calls to say she's also grieving over the continued separation of me and CPT Patti.

Such may be the nature of friendships these days.

I remember being a kid and going to the little southern baptist church where daddy was the minister of music. At the end of every service, after the final prayer, we'd all sing together "Blessed Be the Ties that Bind"

Well, chances are if you are reading these words, we are bound by ties to the good that we are trying to accomplish on behalf of, and in some cases, in spite of, the Iraqi people. For many of them have known, it is fair to say, only evil.

Which brings us full circle...

Some do not believe in the concept of evil. But evil might be defined as the absence of good.

Me...well, I've been showered by such amazing levels of good today, good people doing good things for good reasons, that by my logic, evil must exist.

But in the face of all the goodness, it doesn't stand a chance.