For many years, in the 60s and 70s, it was the tradition to go to the family farm to celebrate Thanksgiving. Family members, scattered across New England, returned to the farm to flock around the Thanksgiving table. The table was laden with serving dishes filled to the brim with meats and vegetables that had been raised on the farm. Many desserts would follow. It was truly a harvest festival.
After the prayer of Thanksgiving for family, friends and the bounty of the harvest, the conversation began, praising the cooks and marveling over their culinary skill. It was explained to me, before arriving at the farm, that only two subjects were never to grace the table: politics and religion. Therefore, to divert me from that temptation, I inherited the task of reporting on the number of different vegetables on the table — I think the record was 14!
The warmth, good humor and care that graced the table with many expressions of love, is in stark contrast to 2025 national and international events spreading alienation, condemnation and callousness toward violence that has desensitized much of the human population. The magnitude of suffering has increased at a seemingly exponential rate. Much of it may be due to the growing ridicule of empathy and the rise in grasping for riches and power resulting in the normalization of bullying. The other logical factor is the access to increasingly more devastating weapons of mass destruction. It seems that humanity is in a downward spire.
I have never been one to personify evil. However, as I read the print news and watch the pictures on TV, evil seems to be more and more of an existential threat. For example, evil is found alive and well in the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, as well as in the increasing conflict in the Palestinian occupied territory in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Evil lives in the treatment of immigrants in the United States.
Sarah Wildman, a New York Times staff writer and editor in Opinion, writes about the ICE detention of people, describing the facilities as being “kept purposefully, horrendously cold, forcing some of them to huddle up against strangers. They spoke of lights left on 24 hours a day and of interstate transfers that came without notice. They described food that was inadequately distributed and made them unwell.” As a result of his investigation, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff received or identified 510 reports of human rights abuse cases “Credibly reported or confirmed events to date include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse, mistreatment of pregnant women, mistreatment of children, inadequate medical care, overcrowding and unsanitary living conditions, inadequate food or water, exposure to extreme temperatures, denial of access to attorneys, and family separations.” Evil is alive and relentless.
Recently, in the occupied Palestinian territory, Reuters journalist Raneen Sawafta was beaten by a settler while covering a story. A volunteer with the Red Crescent in Beita told BBC News, “I never imagined a human being created by God would do this … If they had an iota of humanity, they would have never done this to a woman.” The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs recorded over 260 settler attacks resulting in casualties or damage to property in October, the highest monthly count since they began monitoring in 2006. Evil is alive and relentless.
In Ukraine, in 2025, 12.7 million people — 36% of the population — required humanitarian assistance. “The war has been devastating for the country. Attacks on critical water, sanitation and energy infrastructure, children’s homes, schools and health care facilities have been relentless. At least 2,786 children have been killed or injured since February 2022,” according to UNICEF. Evil is alive and relentless.
However, as relentless as evil is, it is not inevitable. Its ways are learned, as General Willian T. Sherman recognized in 1879 when he said to the graduating class of a military school, “You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!” These young men had been taught the glories of war. The General was attempting to teach its horrors, to awaken their humanity. The relentlessness of evil may be thwarted.
A clue may be found at the Thanksgiving table, where many gathered so recently. We know the origin story of the 1621 harvest feast where settler Pilgrims and the indigenous Wampanoag people came together at a table laden with food from the gardens and the hunt. For a few hours, warmth, good humor and sharing replaced the impulses to dominate, to compete for a perceived limit of resources and to identify origin and skin color as signs of inferiority. We know the lessons offered at that Thanksgiving table did not last. But I’m reminded that the lessons of empathy, hospitality, love of neighbor are still part of the human psyche. Whenever human beings gather around a table, whether for food or negotiations, the acceptance of the normalization of evil is weakened. There is an opening to reclaiming our humanity. That thought gives me hope and a cause for Thanksgiving.
John Buttrick writes from his Vermont Folk Rocker in his Concord home, Minds
Crossing. He can be reached at johndbuttrick@gmail.com.