Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Each of us has effects on his/her village, town, city, country, and world. The way you live affects all the small and big communities surrounding you. The effects can be good or bad, but there is no such thing as “neutral living without any effect.”

When you live well – gentle, humble, charitable, loving, responsible – you generate positive energy to better all your communities.

When you live sinfully – lying, cheating, arrogant, grabbing, badmouthing, backstabbing, fighting – you drag all your communities down with the negative energy you generate.

And when you say: “I live neutrally, not doing much, neither good nor bad; I have no effects one way or another on all the communities surrounding me,” you are dead wrong.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Philosopher John Stuart Mill)

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Not trying to stop evil means supporting evil.

And, the Bible teaches the method to overcome evil: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

You don’t want evil to overcome you. You want to overcome evil. But do not use evil methods to fight against evil, because you would just add more negative, evil energy to all your communities.

Instead, overcome evil with good – loving, gentleness, and caring — to all people, friend or foe. Then evil will die away.

Needless to say, you should always be active in overcoming evil with good. No evil methods. No fighting of any kind. And there is no such thing as “neutral living.”

With compassion,

Hoành

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Trần Đình Hoành
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