"Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."  So writes the apostle Paul in the twelfth chapter of his letter to the church at Rome.  As the people of Iraq regroup after yet another suicide bombing, this one at a place of worship; as people in Saudi Arabia pick up after an attack at one of the holiest places in Islam, as people in Bangladesh try to move on after a devastating bombing; and as people across the U.S. attempt to come to grips with the horrendous waves of violence sweeping across its inner cities--and as we hear, and witness, too many calls for and acts of revenge--we do well to remind ourselves of the sentiments this verse expresses.  Though we are deeply saddened, though we are thoroughly exasperated, though we are shocked and numbed by these deeds, we must do everything we can to not let their darknesses overcome us.  We must exercise all the self-discipline we can muster to avoid falling into the trap that these atrocities have set for us.
     We must look beyond who we are most prone to be:  selfish, self-centered, and entirely finite beings.  We must consider moral realities which we are not regularly inclined to conjure, ethical frameworks which we are not bent to normally pursue.  Left to our own devices, we will fight evil with evil.  And we will accomplish nothing.  Yet if we recognize that our moralities are but sparse reflections of a much greater moral purpose, one resting in a divine vision, we can move forward with grace, equanimity, and calm.  If we decide that the pain we see does not obliterate the fact of transcendent value, we have recourse, we have hope.  We have point.
     As God wept when his son Jesus died on the cross, so does he weep for all of us, all of us caught in these unfathomable torrents of suffering and pain.  God loves, God cares. We may not see him, we may not hear him, but he's there.
     If we wish to go on with reason and probity, we must let God overcome us first.