Once again I came across a gate designed to constrain (and thereby de facto enslave) some local dairy cows, once again I was asked to close the gate behind me after I crossed its threshold, and once again I blatantly disregarded said request – admittedly doing very little to free my bovine friends from the brutal violence to which they would all be subjected in short order, but at the very least doing nothing at all to enliven or enable the same.

“Over the course of my life it has been gradually disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties or religious dogmas — but rather straight through every human heart in every moment it lives. And it has also been made all too clear that this line shifts inside us all, and that it ever oscillates throughout our years. Just as true have I come to know that even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, a small bridgehead of good is ever retained – just as that even in the best of all hearts, there remains an un-uprooted sliver of latent evil. As such I have come to understand the fundamental truth that rests within the conscience of every human being on earth – namely, that we all struggle with the evil inside us, and that we are all equally allowed in every moment to choose Goodness instead. It may be impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, no doubt, and yet it is always possible to transcend the same – at least for present instant – within ourselves.” ~ via Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Filed under: Peace Pilgrimage #02: Walking HOME (2019) by Scaughdt