The Walking Dead's Life Lesson #1031

I have never really been good with Halloween, but I always try to be in the spirit of traditions and such. I once gave out grapes because we didn’t have candy and I felt bad for the kids. There’s a video on YouTube somewhere, Grapes for Halloween or something like that. True story. Though I thought I was doing the trick-or-treating tots of my neighborhood a service, in retrospect, I do realize now how sketchy I must have been for parents yelling out, “You won’t get cavities!”… Honestly, the worst and spookiest part of the video is realizing that I used to pop my collar. Sighs. Better late than never, here is my apology 9 years later. ~

The past couple of weeks have been filled with Rick Grimes & Co. — I am finally fully caught up with the Walking Dead and now I have to actually wait for new episodes like everyone else. So in my spare time, I just ponder about the theological parallels from the show, Glenn lol (I took a “Which Walking Dead Character Are You” Quizzie and got Maggie, so yeah bye), and how clever the storyline of this show is. So, here’s my attempt as the Watching Dead (lol.) 

In the show, there are those who fight. Those who build. There are those who hide. Those who hurt. Those who lose hope. And those who just survive somehow. I think that we have been all these at some point in our lives… but there is a reason why we root for Rick Grimes and his group. They represent what I think we must always fight to be, and that is to be the fighters, the builders, the survivors. We root for the ones who protect life.

The Walkers/Roamers/Geeks/Insert-your-epithet-here in the show have caused so many of the characters to die out of fear, of violence under the hands of both the zombies and the living. Bottomline, no one wants to turn into a zombie. Every character does what he needs to do to make sure he does not turn into one. The show illustrates that the best way to protect oneself is to know the evil that he is up against. 

What's scarier than the evil that plagues the world are the people who ignore the evil and worse, use the good to justify what's evil. I’ve realized that the worst thing we can be is to be blinded by our fears and not only be weakened but paralyzed by our inability to grasp the gravity of the evil that threatens the living of our world (See characters towards end of Season 5.) If you strip evil bare, at its core you will find absolute nothingness — emptiness; a something that perpetually reduces itself to nothing. It is the very opposite of God. It is the anti-thesis of Being. Evil is everything that goes against what it means to truly live. It is the empty bodies of those mindless and soulless zombies. 

I think that to hide in despair of the evil around is in itself ...evil. I for one do not want to hide from the reality of the death brought about by our own sinfulness because it is the only way I can truly protect, preserve, and continue to strive for a life of love; a life as a human person. I love being human! Everyone suffers and has a cross of their own to bear, but how many of us suffer because of our own hardness of heart? I am still learning every single day, and I will for the rest of my life. I will fail, but I can never lose the fight in me. If to love is to will the highest good to another, then keeping them away from the perversion of all that is good would be what is most loving. Nothing scares me more than knowing I failed to love. Though I know I will at times, we must go on learning to love better. We must survive the threats of our failures. Survival is not just about “making it.” It’s not just about not getting killed. It is for us to not “turn.” It is for us to not lose the essence of being human. 

There's no greater evil than taking the goodness of our human lives and reducing it to nothingness. I do not fear zombies, I only fear becoming like one.