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For goodness’ sake.

For the sake of goodness.

Because goodness deserves your attention…

You really should visit the GOODNESS Blog Carnival on

Bridget Chumbley’s One Word at a Time.

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Before I go on, I feel like I should say,

“And now for something completely different…”

In Jerusalem last week, we visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial. For some reason, as I’ve tried today to ponder the subject of “goodness,” what keeps coming to mind is Yad Vashem.

Odd, isn’t it? A museum dedicated to remembering the Holocaust represents very little that is good.

But maybe not so odd… perhaps sometimes to bring attention to goodness, we need to show it in contrast to evil.

Dragging darkness out into light…. Not the only definition of goodness, certainly.

But maybe some scenes look sharper – stand out more – when viewed in stark relief.

Image of Uziel Spiegel
At the entrance to the Yad Vashem Children’s Memorial.

The Children’s Memorial was funded by a donation from Abraham and Edita Spiegel, Holocaust survivors and parents of Uziel, who was killed in Auschwitz in 1944. The simple, ominous exhibit commemorates 1.5 MILLION children (at least) who died in the Holocaust. Darkness, candles twinkling like thousands of stars lining the walls, and a woman’s voice reading the name of every known child victim. That’s it.

To go through the entire list, reading names during opening hours every day, takes eighteen months.

Eighteen months.

As I said at the beginning of this post, goodness does deserve our attention. I guess today’s post is a reminder of what goodness is NOT.

Please do go visit Bridget for links to dozens of other perspectives on the subject.