“Hate is our emotional link with the spirituality of evil. It is the volcanic eruption of outrage when the holiness of being, ours or another’s, has been violated. It is also the ugliest and most dangerous of our emotions, the hair trigger on a loaded gun. Embarrassed by the ugliness and fearful of the murderous, we commonly neither admit nor pray our hate; we deny it and suppress it. But if it is not admitted it can quickly and easily metamorphose into the evil that provokes it; and if it is not prayed we have lost an essential insight and energy in doing battle with evil.”
“Our hate needs to be prayed, not suppressed.”
-Eugene Peterson in Answering God
2 years ago
What does it mean to be a GOOD person?
We hear/read countless stories on the news about heinous crimes and hear/read the testimonies of the mothers, fathers, friends of the ones who’ve inflicted the crime: “He’s such a good boy” or “He’s a good person.” On the flipside, we have individuals who are completely self-less, like Mother Teresa, and people around the world would agree that she was a good person. Can a murderer and Mother Teresa be put into the same category of a good person?
I hear a lot of people say, “I just want to be a good person.” Okay, that’s great. I applaud their sincere interest in wanting to be a person who does good in this world. Heck, we all know this world desperately needs good people.
I know “being a good person” is so relative. What’s “good” for one person may be considered “sin” for another.
What do you think? What does it mean to be a good person? Is it enough to be a good person? Do we need something else?
2 years ago
