Rev-Bates Weekly Message for Sunday, December 14, 2025
This morning on the News there were reports of a terrorist attack on a Hannukah Party in Bondi Beach, a suburban community of Sydney, Australia, killing 11 people and wounding 29. Also, a report of a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, USA killing two and wounding nine. Here in Palm Desert, the Mayor Pro-Tem is proposing to ban the Pride Flag during Pride Month. Who does this flag hurt? Our State Assembly Member, Greg Wallis, a republican, has denounced the proposal. My conclusion after these reports and so many like them, is that the human species is the most evil. Why? And what can we do?
This morning’s
news confronts us with images and numbers that pierce the heart—lives lost,
families shattered, communities stunned by violence. When we witness such acts
again and again, it can feel unbearable to reconcile human intelligence,
creativity, and tenderness with our capacity for cruelty. The question
naturally arises: How can a species capable of love also inflict such harm?
From a spiritual—not religious—perspective, this tension points to a deep inner
conflict within humanity itself. We are not inherently evil so much as
profoundly divided within our own consciousness, often driven by fear,
alienation, and the illusion of separation from one another.
Violence is born
where empathy collapses. When individuals or groups lose the felt sense of
shared humanity, others become objects, symbols, or enemies rather than living
beings with inner lives as vivid as their own. Fear then seeks justification,
ideology gives it language, and anger gives it permission. Spiritually
speaking, this is not the triumph of evil but the absence of awareness—an
eclipse of our innate capacity to recognize ourselves in one another. The
tragedy is not only in the act itself, but in how disconnected a person must
feel to commit it.
So, what can we do?
We begin where all lasting change begins: within consciousness. Each act of
compassion, each refusal to dehumanize, each moment we choose understanding
over reaction weakens the conditions that give rise to violence. This does not
mean passivity or denial of justice; it means addressing root causes as well as
consequences. We can cultivate presence instead of rage, dialogue instead of
demonization, and courage instead of despair. Spiritually, our work is to
remember—again and again—that humanity’s darkest expressions are not its
essence. The same species capable of terrible harm is also capable of profound
healing, and the future depends on which capacity we choose to nurture.
Keep the faith!
Rev-Bates
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