The Good

Daily I meet people through my job at a veteran's hospital who have made an enormous sacrifice, and who continue to suffer as a result of that sacrifice. Collectively they made this sacrifice not for glory nor adventure, but out of a sense of duty and devotion to their country, and because they desired to make the world better, and because they believed in peace.
This week's assignment of "the good the bad and the ugly" for me raises questions far deeper than memories of a Clint Eastwood film.
War is the ultimate ugly. It destroys and consumes and degrades. It is fueled by evil (the bad) yet also consumes the good. Sometimes the lines between good and evil become blurred and confused, sometimes they are clear and defined.
Bad and Good seem to coexist within us in a schizoid way. Sometimes we meet people who are evil incarnate, others seem to be saints. Sometimes it's not so clear and people behave sometimes good /sometimes bad. Most of us keep struggling to be better, to create beauty, to give kindness and to try to make the world around us less ugly. Sometimes we are lazy or we are weak or we just crap out. I heard an interesting discussion on NPR about Mother Theresa and how she had to struggle with her faith, even while living such a dedicated life of duty and devotion. Perhaps we are all striving and failing, striving and failing. If there is a final question perhaps it will be "did you keep trying?".

Anyway, here is a memorial to our combat wounded and to their sacrifice in the name of that which is good. Thank you.