There is evil in the world. The widely-reported bombings in Boston and Iraq on Monday are testament to that. So are all the other inhuman acts committed on a daily basis throughout the world, though not making it to the front page because they are so commonplace. Yes, I believe there is evil in the world.

I am sure in the next few days, weeks, months and years, people from all aspects of the political and religious spectrums will debate the root causes of all this evil. Some will have more valid arguments than others but no one will be able to claim ownership of the definitive causes. Some will still try.

Right now, though, I am really not all that interested in debating whether evil is a supernatural being or just people choosing to carry out some very horrible acts against others. I am not interested in debating which foreign and domestic policies may or may not have an impact on the occurrence of these evil acts.

What I am interested in discussing is what we can do in response to the evil we see in the world.

My concern is the initial outpouring of support and the pledges of unity will, in time, be replaced by fear and suspicion, thinking that is how we can best protect ourselves.

I think just the opposite needs to occur.

Make no mistake about it – I do believe there are reasons to concerned. I do not wear Pollyanna glasses. I just believe when we let fear and suspicion rule our lives, we invite more evil to enter them.

To me, the response to evil is to spell it backwards – to live!

I am hoping the thought of the more than 50 dead and over 300 wounded Iraqis from Monday’s bombings will encourage, and not deter, their fellow citizens from speaking out and voting on April 20th.

I am hoping in response to the dead and wounded in Boston, the applications to run in the Boston Marathon next year will surpass any previous year.

Instead of choosing to circle our wagons and hunker down, we need to show evil that we will not stop living.

By altering live a little bit, just by one letter, we can find another way to respond to evil – to give. When we open our hands and arms to others, there is nothing holding in our fear, suspicion and anger.

By again changing just one letter of live, we get another way to respond to evil – to love. When we open our hearts to each other, there is no room for evil to take root.

There is no guarantee that by choosing to live, to give and to love any change in the world will occur. But as Garth Brooks sings in The Change (written by R. Wayne Tester and Anthony Arata):

I hear them saying you’ll never change things
And no matter what you do it’s still the same thing
But it’s not the world that I am changing
I do this so this world we know
Never changes me

I am going to choose to continue to live, to give and to love so those who choose to do evil in the world will know, they will not change me.