Grappling with evil

Lori Borgman

There is a word we fancy ourselves too sophisticated to use today. We’re too evolved, too progressive, too educated, too intellectual, too therapeutic. It is a word some find offensive, insensitive and controversial. That word is -- evil.

Evil was the word that came to mind as news of the mass murder at Virginia Tech began crossing the television screen.

Evil was the word formed by the dark clouds of smoke and ash that hovered over the ruins of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Evil has a long history. Even a brief look back in time finds it swooping low over Pearl Harbor and forming the foundation of the Holocaust.

When President Reagan called The Soviet Union an evil empire, many tongues in the free world wagged in disgust. Those in the gulags appreciated his candor.

When President Bush lamented the Axis of Evil he, too, was taken to the woodshed.

Evil is a concept considered outdated and provincial. Yet you can hardly go a week without picking up the paper and seeing some hideous manifestation of it.

When our jaws drop at the mother who has taken the lives of her children, we are gaping at evil. When we learn of another drunk driver speeding the wrong way on the interstate, killing innocents in the path, we see the face of evil.

If only evil had a geographic place of origin, some tiny spot on the planet we could pinpoint with GPS. We could take a scorched-earth policy and nuke it. And then, when the dust had settled, we could blast it again. If only it were that easy.

Instead we confront evil with SWAT teams shrouded in black vests, black pants, black boots and black hoods, gripping black weapons. All appropriately dark and dramatic in a grisly way.

In the 4th Century, St. Augustine contended that the things we call bad are simply good things perverted. Good is the tree and evil is the ivy. A thinking friend puts it even simpler: Evil is the absence of good.

You cannot become fully mature individual without grappling with the problem of evil. Further, you cannot have these “talks with children” the experts encourage, without discussing the nature of evil -- where it comes from, how it takes root, the path it charts, and the things that help it grow.

The sobering part is that we all carry the seed. The potential for evil resides in every one of us. Nobody is immune.

C.S. Lewis offered an excellent caution when he said good and evil both increase at compound interest. “That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.”

Driving that truth home to our children, and to ourselves, may be the first step in bringing good out of evil.

Pondering payback? Sleep on it

Lori Borgman

If you have never been kicked, thrashed or jabbed in your sleep by your bed partner, you might not be able to relate to this one.

We have overnight guests, which has forced the two early-twenty-something daughters, home for the weekend, to share a double bed. Around 2 a.m., the younger sister, having a particularly vivid dream, punches her older sister in the head.

The sister who was punched is now fully awake and contemplating throttling her bedmate, but what good is revenge when the recipient is not awake to feel it?

The dilemma, then, is this: Can she extract some measure of satisfaction in the morning? Say, wring a little guilt, demand a latte from the corner coffee bar, or a bagel from the bagel shop, something along those lines.

Naturally, the one who was punched says yes. The one who did the punching says no, you cannot be held accountable for your behavior on a safari along the mosquito-infested Nile while dressed like a leprechaun, wrestling monkeys dropping from trees.

Another young lady who has spent the night offers that as a small child she sometimes had to share a bed with her brother, a known kicker, and yes, you can seek restitution. This young lady soon will be heading to law school and contends there is no statue of limitations to avenging being pummeled in your sleep.

I can testify that the daughter who threw the punch is also a kicker. When she was little and sometimes crawled into bed with us, she would occasionally deliver a sharp blow to the shins. And she used to wonder why I took away her play privileges the next day.

This violent sleep pattern runs in the family.

The married son, suffering from allergies, took some different medication and had a rambunctious night himself. His wife reports that he first threw the dog off the bed and onto the floor, muttered something, and then tried to throw her off the bed and onto the floor. (They are still married.)

I blame the husband for all of this. And why shouldn’t I? It’s my column.

The husband has three sleep modes. Small Electrical Appliance Mode, when he snores with the whir of the blender and the mixer; Commercial Transportation Mode, when he snores like a 727 on take-off; and his third mode -- the most alarming of all – Silence.

Silence means he is sleeping soundly on his back with his arms folded under his head, elbows extended like chicken wings protruding from behind both ears. His right chicken wing borders dangerously close to my left eye.

Call me selfish, but I like my left eye. It is a nice match to my right eye. Should he roll toward my eye, I get an abrupt awakening and a potential shiner.

Fortunately, I am a light sleeper. I hear the furnace click, the showerhead drip and the clock tick. I hear silence, too, and that is when I know to put up my guard. Picture a spectator shielding her eyes from the sun with a cupped hand over her brow at a tennis match and you’ve got it.

Having been clunked a few times in my sleep as well, I am extremely interested as to the ethics of extracting a payback the next morning.

It is a dilemma one would do well to sleep on.

MOB outfit no easy fit

Lori Borgman

There are blatant inequities when it comes to wedding attire for males and females. Men do not try on tux after tux, tossing them over the fitting room door with sighs of exasperation, rejecting cummerbunds five, 10 and 20 at a time, vowing to give up carbs and try Pilates.

Men walk into a formalwear store, have a few strategic measurements taken and return the day before the wedding to pick up their penguin suits. The entire process takes roughly eight minutes.

By contrast, Columbus sailed to the New World in half the time it takes a woman to find a dress for a special occasion.

As a woman who will soon be an MOB (mother of the bride) I have to say it is great fun watching the bride-to-be try on dresses. It is great fun watching the bridesmaids try on dresses. It is great fun chumming with the flower girl, who says her job is to, and I quote, “drop flower petals, walk proud and not goof around.”

But when it comes time for the mother of the bride to begin the dress hunt, the fun quotient plummets like an Olympic diver springing off the high board.

On the upside, preliminary shopping can be done on the Internet. Yet, there seems to be some disparity between how a dress looks on the computer screen and how it looks in the fitting room.

The silver dress with the straight skirt and square cut jacket, the one that whispered understated elegance on-line, takes on a different look when covering my actual person. Yes, it now has the distinct look of a stainless steel refrigerator. The dazzling jewel trim on the right pocket can even pass for the ice dispenser.

The flowing gown with the full skirt that looked so graceful online looks like a frock worn by Mary Queen of Scots. “Bring me my scepter! Where is my tea?”

My shopping companion says that my narration is not helpful. I say the models online were probably all seven feet tall and gave up eating solid food when Bush was inaugurated. Bush 41, that is.

The ruffled number with the flounces that looked so sleek and sophisticated on the Web site looks like a dust ruffle without end in front of the three-way mirror.

The dark green suit that was breathtaking on my monitor looks like a pup tent, and the teal blue number guaranteed to camouflage middle-age “flaws” could double as a slipcover for Yankee Stadium.

It is a nix on the black number with the long train and long sleeves -- a little too Adams Family-ish, and a no go on the one with the ostrich feathers -- there will be no fan dancing. The halter that plunges to the belly button is a reject while still on the hanger and the jungle print with the slit to the upper thigh can return to the rack as well.

I am ready to call it a day when the daughter shopping with me whips into the dressing room with one more outfit.

“I think this is it,” she says.

“That’s what you said 300 dresses ago.”

She zips it up and pronounces it “the one.”

At this point I could be wearing mechanic’s coveralls with Bubba written across the chest and she’d say it is “the one.”

“It might make me look like a cake topper,” I say. “What do you think?”

“I think all that truly matters is that you walk proud and not goof around.”

What does it mean to wear the name Christian?

Lori Borgman

I have always felt a tad sorry for children named Christian.

Don’t get me wrong. Christian is a wonderful name. It just seems like it could add extra pressure to everyday life.

Whenever we would have a mess of kids playing in the backyard, voices would often drift in through the kitchen window and I’d hear things like “Don’t hit, Christian!” or “Stop that, Christian.”

If it had been a Bill or a Bob the kids were yelling at to stop throwing sand, it wouldn’t have registered in my consciousness. But there was an amusing irony in hearing a voice holler, “Knock it off, Christian!”

At times, I wondered if it wasn’t the voice of God calling to me.

I have also wondered if having the name Christian would make you more tempted to smoke cigarettes at 16, thus distancing yourself from the rules and restrictions implied by the name, or more resolute not to smoke at 16 due to a deep respect for the name you wore.

But why should I wonder about such things? Christian is my name, too.

Christian is not the name on my birth certificate, my Social Security card or my driver’s license. It is my name by the virtue of a gift of God.

Through the time and space of Holy Week, the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, the betrayal, the scene in the garden, the mock trial, the agony of Good Friday and the miracle of Resurrection Sunday, I, like 2 billion others on this planet, go by the name Christian.

The names we call ourselves and the names we call one another are important. They define who we are. So what does it mean to wear the name Christian?

At the core, it means seeing every dimension of life, things done at home, at work, in public and in private, with an eternal perspective. From that perspective comes meaning, purpose and direction.

Once you wear the name Christian, nothing is ever wasted, not a single teardrop, not a lonely moment, or an ounce of suffering and pain. It all becomes part of the thread woven into the larger tapestry.

Wearing the name Christian means recognizing what it means to be redeemed by a sacrifice -- and sacrificing in return. It means releasing our closed-fist grip on life and holding all that we have with an open hand – our calendars, our checkbooks, our talents and abilities, our homes, our material possessions and the people we love.

Wearing the name Christian also means growing a heart bent toward the less fortunate, serving as salt and light, preserving the good, giving flavor and zest to every corner of life.

At times, the name also means being an odd ball – praying for your enemies, being last in order to be first, giving second, third and fourth chances and swallowing hard and saying, “Forgive me.”

Wearing the name Christian means treating all people with dignity, seeing with blinders in a sense, leveling the playing field between the strange ones, the smelly ones, the pretty ones and the powerful ones.

For those of us who wear name the by choice, Easter is a good time to ask how that name has made a difference. In pollster terms: a little, a lot, or absolutely none.

The last response would be the most tragic of all.