They’ve Misplaced the Moral Dictionary

Ken Pullen – copyright 2010

The
problem with evil is

people.

Unless
they can smell the burning bodies

have a
number high enough to make there skin crawl

or it
flips the horrific switch in their heads

unless
their cable news network flashes the individual face of evil

on their
TV screen 9,646 times an hour

they do
not realize

evil is
the absence of good.

Ignoring
is evil.

It
allows evil to go from root to shoot to suffocating vine.

Apathy
is evil.

Nonchalance
is evil

Excuses
and deflection are evil.

The very
act is not all there is to evil

as the
people burying their heads,

turning
their faces,

sealing
their lips,

closing
their eyes

are complicit in evil growing, advancing, darkening, and suffocating

whatever
light might be available.

Evil is
cunning and subtle

it is
not always death camps,

ovens,

what is
done to bodies for pleasure

in many
of the ways we limit how we measure

The
absence of good is evil…

because
it allows evil to take root and grow

until
the darkened shade of its poisonous branches

give the
people under its canopy the illusion

of
comfort

and
normalcy right before they are forever cast into hell for eternity