FFT

Our Greatest Threat

Much as I hate to admit it, I do reconnaissance at the Department of Motor Vehicles before choosing my seat. The place is a collision of diversity. Logically, I shouldn't feel so uneasy. No one's going to pull a knife on me. But within this diversity there are certain people groups that I view with suspicion. I'm not proud of it, but I believe certain people groups have an unusual capacity for doing evil.
Are certain people really more prone to doing evil than others? Yes. I've found that history points to a single people group who do the most evil. I know it sounds terribly intolerant to label a single people group as the enemy, but this is what history shows.
So who is this great enemy of ours? Three historical vignettes will answer that question. We begin in the 5th century with an answer offered by Symeon Stylites. A Christian ascetic, Symeon sought to free himself from the corrosion of the world by building a 60-foot pillar and standing atop it for 37 years. He started a trend and soon a forest of pillars grew up around him, each topped with a man who similarly believed that the problem was something "down there." Who's the enemy, according to Symeon? The swamp of depraved souls below.
A second story offers a different answer. A journalist once approached Mother Teresa, notepad in hand. Apparently thinking he'd stump her, he asked pointedly, "Where is God when a child dies alone in the slums of Calcutta?" It's not an uncommon question. A God who claims to be both powerful and loving should be taken to task for such an atrocity. The implication, of course, is that God is the perpetrator of evil.
A third answer comes from Flannery O'Connor. As a novelist and essayist, she's not exactly writing history, but her vision is sharp enough to blur the line between fiction and reality. In a doctor's waiting room, Mrs. Turpin sits and reflects on her good nature, thankful that Jesus "had not made her a nigger or white-trash or ugly." Then for no apparent reason, a snarlingly ugly girl hurls a book at her from across the room, followed by an insult, "Go back to hell where you came from, you old warthog." Having collected herself, dusting off her pride Mrs. Turpin notes silently of the insult, "There was trash in the room to whom it might justly have been applied." Who's the enemy, according to Mrs. Turpin? Others who don't know good folk when they see 'em.
So far, our three stories don't agree on a common enemy, except to say not me. But the stories go on. Mrs. Turpin left the doctor's office baffled by the ugly girl's ignorance. Later that night, however, she couldn't shake the girl's words. They echoed in her mind, speaking the truth by stripping bare her self-righteous soul: "Go back to hell, you old warthog." Mrs. Turpin is the real enemy.
Mother Teresa took the journalist's question in stride. But her answer cut short any further ridicule. "Where was God when a child dies alone in Calcutta?" She responded patiently: "Where were you?" The journalist is the real enemy.
Symeon Stylites eventually became a saint. But in his effort to escape the corrosive world below, his foot produced a terrible ulcer. The pus that continually seeped out is documented in graphic detail. Corrosion, it seems, also comes from within. Symeon is the real enemy.
Which is the people group most prone to do evil? History tries to dodge the question, but the answer is inevitable: it's not them; it's me. I am our greatest enemy.
May God save us from ourselves.

- Brandon Gaide.