Beware of evil, but be aware of the good in life
/The Boston Herald
Beverly Beckham
There it is. On my bulletin board. Someone sent it to me. The rules for life. "Share everything. Play fair. Put things back where you found them. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Flush."
I always smile when I read this. Most days I marvel at the wisdom in such brevity. But today I think they were rules for a gentler time.
A woman tells me that her father began sexually abusing her when she was 11 years old.
"Do you mind?" he asked her.
"You're my father," she said.
He never said he was sorry for hurting her, for violating her trust, for stealing her childhood. He never told her that "share everything" didn't apply to this.
What rules should she have been taught? Trust no one, not your mother, not your father, not your best friend.
Beware of all people. Lock your doors and your heart. Remain alone. Don't share. Don't reach out. Don't give. People will hurt you. People will use you.
Is this what we should be teaching our children?
A woman on her way to work last Wednesday morning got off the Southeast Expressway at the Freeport Street exit, stopped at the bottom of the ramp and rolled down her window to answer a man who asked her if she knew where a telephone was.
"Don't talk to strangers," we are taught from the time we are small. But we talk to strangers constantly. Strangers are just people we haven't met yet. Most everyone we know used to be a stranger. Besides, we are also taught and encouraged to reach out and help those in need.
This man in need, this stranger, put a knife to the woman's throat, forced his way into her car and raped her.
So is the lesson to be learned: Don't stop for anyone?
Don't answer a stranger's question. Don't jeopardize your safety. Don't slow down even at 8 o'clock in the morning, even in daylight. Consider everyone you don't know your enemy.
Do we now add this to our list of dos and don'ts? Don't cut through the woods. Do stay on brightly lit streets.
Don't get in a car with someone you don't know. Don't jog alone. Avoid the city. Avoid the country. Stay at home.
Lock your doors. Don't open them for anyone. Play it safe.
Be vigilant. Remain alone.
Carol Stuart believed she had the best marriage in the world. Gregory Smart thought his wife loved him. Dozens of women thought Ted Bundy was a gentleman. Matthew Rosenberg seemed like a nice kid.
So is the one indisputable fact of life that you know anyone and therefore should never trust? That you must live your life constantly on guard?
I tell my children, "It's a rough world out there. You have to be careful." But what does careful mean? If you don't trust, you don't grow. If you're always on guard, you live in a cage with invisible bars.
A man who was abused by a priest writes insisting that all priests are abusers. He is constantly sending me clippings to "prove" his contention.
Is he correct? Is the good man the aberration, and the deviate the norm? Is the world an evil place where all men are potential rapists and child abusers and killers?
It would seem that way. There is certainly plenty of evil in the world.
But there is good, too. Only the good is quiet. It doesn't make headlines. It doesn't shout. It doesn't rage.
It doesn't destroy. And so it goes unnoticed, because it is common, like an ordinary, stormless day.
"Beware of evil," I would write in capital letters on any list of rules. "But also be AWARE of good."
It exists all around us.
