When is it evil?

Good morning, Netizens…

Despite having a vast overload of work keeping me from my appointed rounds, I could not help but ask a theologically thorny question in the face of the deaths in Newtown, Connecticut, as it has been haunting me since I first heard the news yesterday and saw the President of the United States wiping the tears from his eyes.

Or, more in keeping with the deeply-moving statements made by Jeanie last evening, based upon my knowledge of the certainty of both good and evil in this macabre world we live in, I cannot help but ask the question in the face of the terrible events that unfolded yesterday, when does this cease being a mental health issue and when does it become pure evil ?

Somewhere in Connecticut today, there is a somber and nearly-overwhelming image that hardly any of the news media have sought out: a lovely Christmas tree with presents stacked high beneath its boughs laden with lights and icicles, but the child who was to be there on Christmas Day, with his/her eyes alight with joy has been killed in what I would term an act of indiscriminate violence. Is that not evil?

I submit that the only grace, if there is any hope for that, is that 20 lives which were snuffed out have been delivered to a place where they no longer will know fear.

Humbly submitted,

Dave