Good & Bad

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

Good isn’t always readily distinguishable from bad. Is it good to want life to be easier for our children than what we experienced when we grew up? Is it bad to want those punished who do us harm? Too much of a good thing no matter how good it is can sometimes end up being bad for us. So, is it correct to say that good and bad are relative; that they change with the circumstance before us? I do not believe that good and bad are relative terms that change depending on the situation. I believe that good and bad are constants but by our individual choices we can warp something good into something detrimental to our wellbeing.

Good and bad are often camouflaged to our biased eyes. I use the term biased to describe how we see things. The eye records the object or event. The optic nerve sends the recorded image to the brain where it is identified. After the object or experience is identified the brain goes through a series of processes that ultimately open the door to our emotions based on our knowledge and experience.

Two people can look at the same object or have a similar experience and come away with a totally different feeling or interpretation. On my walk this morning I passed a black Malibu LS Chevrolet sedan parked on the side of the street. In the back window of the car was a sticker/picture of two females in silhouette. The images reminded me of the type of chrome female silhouettes that adorn the mud flaps of eighteen-wheelers: long legs, super thin waists, and ample youthful busts. These two silhouettes were identical with the exception that one was portrayed as an angel and the other as a devil. The angel silhouette had wings and a halo while the devil silhouette had horns and a tail. Remove these items just described from the silhouettes and you wouldn’t be able to tell the two figures apart. Which one was the angel and which was the devil? It would all be left up to how you saw them or imagined them to be.

That’s what we discover in life much of the time . . . good and bad packaged in the same wrapping paper. I have decided to not share the rest of the this story in hopes that you think about it and come up with your own ending.