Inspiration for the response:
Since there is good and evil in all of us, may God grant us the compassion and wisdom to see the good and not the evil.
Correction:
“Since there is good and evil in all of us, may God grant us the compassion and wisdom to know the good and do it and not the evil.”
Language: such statements may be about our capacity for the doing of good and evil, and what may be most important, day by day, decision by decision, is that we do good and care to lean toward what is good.
The Persian Faravahar has come to my mind as symbolic of both the tension between good and evil and the taking of the direction of the good.
Image File Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Faravahar-Gold.svg
The awesome conversation has been working around the issue of virtue in other threads. BackChannels’ own political virtues have long been posted near the top of the left sidebar: Compassion, Empathy, Justice, Humility, Inclusion, Integrity.
In Wikipedia, one may find listed the “Cardinal Virtues“: “Prudence, Temperance, Courage, Justice”.
Of course, there are other characterizations of what is good, but all may be reduced to {normative values x context / intentions} and good intentions further reduce to loving consideration and thoughtfulness. Hillel the Elder distilled all of that into one golden expression:
“That which is distasteful to thee do not do to another.”
Barbaric cultures of cruelty complicate our lives as do the insatiable needs of the malign narcissists who set their lowest standards and tones, but even within those one hopes the good will continue striving to be so.
On goodness, never give up.
–33–
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