How to Believe in Good When Evil Happens: Strength, Endurance, and Ease

Joy is lying next to me on the white couch with too many pillows. Her soft sock body suits her name and her purpose. Her cornflower blue thread of eyes and pale salmon pink lips dot her face. Hands are shaped like mittens. Feet only have definition when the soft leather white Mary Janes with teeny tiny bow appliqués are on. They cover the stretchy little socks that roll down over themselves because… well…Joy has cankles, poor thing; straight posts of legs with no definition.
 
With no voice or self-determined movement, her personality is completely external. Her feminity displayed in the soft bleach brown tendrils of hair is more fully defined by the pinafore and under-dress in reversed pattern and colours; white underlay with small blue and yellow flowers covered by blue pinafore with large pale green, blue and yellow flowers.
 
 The doll Joy, was a present to my daughter from one of our hosts during a long siege of couch surfing. That my daughter named her Joy calmed the fears I had as her mother as we endured the first of many months of homelessness.
 
Today, 18 years later I have sewn the ponytail back on her head that had come loose during our many travels. I have put the shoes and socks back on her feet that had come off and been put in one of the boxes my daughter and I had explored two weeks ago.
 
I will write today of choosing life, choosing inner health that leads to outer health. I am an expert on being healed. I have seen the alternative and it is diseased and deadly.
 
Why? Because there is new research out, and a new book that tells this great wonderful new finding. If enough people do good, bad things change. History tells us that.
 
 So what is good and what is evil? Good is integrity. My daughter pointed out to me that the new tires that were gifted to me have the word ‘integrity’ written on them. If you have to get ahead by deceit or outright lying, you are dead inside and no good will come of it for you. If you feel ashamed of yourself and who you are and won’t reveal your true self, you are missing out on the greatest connection ever. You will never find out people like you just the way you are and THAT is the most powerful experience ever. You will never find out the people see goodness in you that you don’t see in yourself.
 
Next to Joy is a Trader Joe’s bag filled with the crafting of an afghan I am knitting. It’s for Aunt Nancy and since she never reads my column but only wants me to finish the book I started with Bruce this won’t spoil the surprise. I love it that one of my biggest supporters doesn’t read my stuff. She just knows my insides and figures the writing must reflect my insides. She’s right.
 
Anyway, I ran out of the creamy white yarn I picked up somewhere and Red Heart SuperSaver ‘Aran’ seemed like it was going to be a good match. It’s not exactly the same so I had to rip out the partially done panel that connects the squares but it will be close enough that if I use that ripped out yarn for one of the squares, the new panel in the new colour will be approximately close enough. I bought one $2.99 skein.
 
Somewhere in China there’s a machine that needs to be fixed. Both ends of the skein were tucked inside the long tube of yarn. There was no loose end on the outside with which to roll the skein into a ball. I began to roll from the inside. It didn’t take too long to have a total twisted mess on my hands. The more I tried to unravel, the worse it got. Rolling it into a ball to use was proving impossible. But I knew what it would feel like when I had straightened the last thread and knot-by-knot, twist-by-twist I persevered. There were times I felt it was too strong a metaphor for my life and put it down. But I did not give in to the temptation to feel it was too big a job. Again and again I began again to roll the ball. Sometimes it was too tangled and I would cut the yarn and begin with a new piece. That happened four times. Four separate balls. By the end of the week I was knitting with the yarn.
 
That is how you move yourself through events when evil seems like it is winning. You focus on the end result that will be good. You do not focus on the evil that got you into the mess. And you do not walk away and let evil win. Even if it seems only a small victory you take the victory you can have that will add to the goodness in your life. Focus on allowing yourself to be blessed and be a blessing. Don’t argue with evil.
 
If you are in pieces, look for what is lost and find it. Restore to wholeness one body part at a time.
 
If you are tied in knots, be patient, use your eyes to see where the situation can be unknotted. Do what you need to do to loosen the threads. Pull carefully to see where they are twisted together. You will untangle the mess.
 
Most of us are not in big powerful positions. Most of us are just cogs in wheels living at the end of somebody else’s life and choices. Your life does not have to reflect their bad choices or woundedness. You keep your eyes on what is yours to make the most of. That adds the most good to this world. Because the world changes on the hearts and actions of little people who make truth important and kindness a sacrament and integrity a virtue. Be part of the collective good. It changes the world for the better.
 
Love,
Deborah