The Benediction Of Life And The Darkness Of Man

Wednesday, 14 January 2026, 11:33 am
Opinion: Martin LeFevre - Meditations

The little mountain lake was eerily calm and quiet when we arrived. There wasn’t so much as a ripple anywhere on the surface. The immanent stillness wouldn’t last however.

Because the reservoir provides drinking water for the surrounding mountain community, no gas-powered motors are allowed. A small, noiseless fishing boat with a man in the back and a woman in the front glided by. It looked as if it was floating on air.

Suddenly very loud, jarring gunshots rang out, coming from the ridge to my right. A series of six or seven shots at a time marred the extraordinary peace of the place. There was a succession of seven or eight bursts over 40 minutes, ending with a half dozen rounds from a gun of a much higher caliber.

The last series of shots didn’t just echo, but concussed over the lake and land.

A friendly couple paused on their way back from circumambulating the lake, and we spoke of the beauty of the place and the afternoon.

Americans generally don’t mention anything “negative” in a casual conversation. Introducing a bit of reality, I said, though we could do without the gunfire, right? Living in the area, they knew the source – a nearby firing range -- and seemed to think little of it.

The couple in the ultra-quiet fishing boat started playing strange music as they neared the launching point on the opposite shore. Though 500 meters away, in the stillness it sounded like it was in the same room. When they reached shore, the man backed a noisy pickup truck to the water’s edge, and left it running for over 20 minutes as they slowly loaded their boat onto the trailer.

It was impossible not to inwardly react to the inconsiderate racket across the lake, which was as bad as the gunfire. The inviolability of the silence returned after they left however, and meditation deepened.

The mind and emotions became as quiet as a lake and surrounding pines, mirroring the silence and timelessness of the cosmos. Stillness and silence hold the infinite mystery of the universe.

Walking the wide, damp path to the far end of the reservoir, I felt the period at the lake brought both benediction and darkness.

When one pauses from work and social busyness, one realises that the ineffable beauty and mystery of the earth and life are being overwhelmed by the darkness of man. Not wanting to see and feel it is undoubtedly one of the main reasons people remain so busy.

I understand why theologians introduce God into the question of evil (for example, “How can an omniscient and loving God allow evil to exist?), since beliefs are their raison d’etre. What I don’t understand is why many philosophers have bought into this faulty line of thinking.

God, however we experience and conceive immanent intelligence, has nothing to do with evil. It’s only the believers in an omniscient and omnipotent deity that get snagged on the how-can-God-allow-evil question.

Of course, hard-core atheists, who believe that the universe is chaos and life is random activity, have no spiritual and philosophical problem with the existence of evil, except how to oppose it in political contexts. For people who regularly have direct contact with intelligence beyond the human mind, and love beyond the personal dimension however, evil is a real and growing phenomenon that must be understood.

So where does evil come from, and what are its goals?

Blaise Pascal could have been speaking about Christian nationalists when he wrote: “If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God.”

Openly standing in the background of press briefings and photo-ops lately is the Mephistophelian Stephen Miller, President Trump’s closest advisor and policy maker. He’s a case study in the psychological roots and metaphysical reality of evil.

Miller, like Trump, scoffs at all constraints and proclaims: “We live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

What they’re saying is that since the world has historically been ruled by naked power, we’re going to unashamedly do what we want because the United States military is the most powerful force in the world.

A cousin of Miller’s, who babysat him as a young child, recently said, “We’re Jewish – we grew up knowing how hated we were just for existing.”

Jarringly, she added, “I’m living with the deep pain of watching someone I once loved become the face of evil.” Without psychologising evil, what went wrong in Miller that he projects so much personal and collective hatred?

Much more importantly, is the supremely confident malevolence of the Trump Administration an American problem, or is formerly semi-constrained evil in human consciousness now fully manifest, and hell bent on total chaos?

Apparently so. But chaos is not evil’s goal but its means. And the Trump Administration is bringing it about in the world in many ways. The goal of evil, which is synonymous with the death wish in human consciousness, is to kill the human spirit.

Evil is a collectively man-made force, not a supernatural power. Therefore we have no need to fear it and can stand up to it as individuals.

By facing and taking complete responsibility for the darkness within us, and standing firm and non-reactively when faced with evil, we learn and grow as human beings, and turn the tables on man’s evil.

Political resistance is futile and foolish without doing so.

Martin LeFevre

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Martin LeFevre - Meditations

Scoop Contributor

Martin LeFevre is a contemplative and philosopher.

His sui generis “Meditations” explore spiritual, philosophical and political questions relating to the polycrisis facing humanity.

lefevremartin77@gmail