My reflection in Church this morning.

They say God is in church today, but where is he? Where is the God who is supposedly everywhere?

Where is God when prayers fall on deaf ears? Where is God when a wife and her child are abandoned by her husband? Where is he when a devotee is dying and a believer is being persecuted for his faith? Where is he when we need him most?

If he is there, then where?

Is he in the routine smile of an usher who loosely shakes your hand? Is he in the church worship team who performs to great fanfare? Is he in the lyrics of a song, the message of a sermon, or the communion elements we partake?

And if the gathering of saints in church moves the heart of God, then where is the part where this divine effect also moves the heart of man?

For isn't it undeniable that many come to church to seek many goals that have little, if not, nothing to do with personal redemption?

Some come to seek attention, to bedazzle with their gift. Some come to seek relief from guilt so that they may return to their old man for the rest of the week. Some even come to reinforce and reaffirm their own righteousness to give the impression that they are above the rest.

Still others come for the social mass effect to gossip, spread discord and entrench toxic views and position. And lastly, there is one group that comes with no agenda, no string attached, no commitment.

In other words, they are the inertia within the inertia. They are like the dry paint in the church; clearly visible but seldom moved.

Truly, the church is a complicated place, where the weekly convergence of saints requires the surrender of one's will for a transformation of one's life. But most times, it is the resistance of one's will against the gentle invitation towards enduring change.

Where then is God in all this?

Where is he when pride, self-righteousness, envy and lust corrupt the heart and rob the redemptive path of a fallen soul? Where is God when hypocrisy reigns and faithlessness persists?

Are there more prodigal sons in church still demanding their inheritance in advance so that they may live their life on their own terms?

Or, are there many others in church who follow the path of the elder brother who live seemingly impeccable lives and are intolerant of the sins in others but blindsided by the sins in themselves?

Alas, if this is what one can generally expect in a church, then I think I am home. I think I fit in, snugly.

This is a place I can truly identify with. I am therefore with people I can relate to. For I have embodied all that I have written about, if not more (or worse).

I get lost in my pride, misled by my greed, derailed by my hypocrisy and am indulgent in my own comfort zone.

I have taken the same route the prodigal son had taken and wandered even further into the thorny path of envy and self-righteousness that the elder son had ever wandered.

It is therefore comforting to know that I am at home in church where I am not expected to be hung up as perfect museum pieces for others to marvel at and bid for only to find on closer scrutiny how imperfect I am.

But on the contrary, in a church, I am with broken people, sometimes still lost, sometimes still struggling, and sometimes still resisting the disciplines of the Spirit.

And where is God in all this? Where is he in all my imperfections, flaws and the strewn broken pieces? Where is God when I fall, cry for help and wander in my own wilderness?

Well, I believe he is there, where I am, at a place he has been before, and taking the same road of grief he once walked. 

As Christ bore the Cross on a bloody trail to the Calvary of self-death, that is, the perfect for the imperfect, I am taking my own journey to that same place of my own demise.

But for me, the road to self-denial is never easy. With every step I take, the broad road calls out to me. Its plans to derail me sometimes overcomes my spirit and plunges me into a time of deep reflection and soul-searching.

As Christ confronted divine helplessness for a purpose and for a season, I believe I too have to confront mine for a purpose and for a season no less.

At most times, I know it is not going to be a readily accessible answer. But it will at least be one I know my Savior had taken before me, and overcome.

As such, maybe my belief are made of better things, that is, stronger and tougher. 

Surely, it is not made of material that bends and breaks. Neither is it made of defences that yield when threatened and tested.

Instead, I'd like to believe that they are made of the same material that once carried my Saviour through. And they are the material that defy the elements of this world. They are in fact beyond what this world can ever comprehend, contain or contrive.

And I suspect this material is comprised of love, faith and hope, and the toughest of them is still love, that is, a love that will carry me through. Cheerz.

Does God care whether or not we masturbate?

Does God care whether or not we masturbate?

Wait, before you stone me on a Sunday morning all dressed up to go to Church, here is my defence. I took my cue from a wise man. He is a Nobel Laureate in Economics. But he is no economist. He is a psychologist. He recently wrote a book to much critical acclaim.

I dare say that no one understands human nature and behavior better than him. Of course, he would disclaim that honor. But the proof is in the pudding and here is what professor Steven Pinker said about him: "(He) is among the most influential psychologists in history and certainly the most important psychologist alive today. He has a gift for uncovering remarkable features of the human mind."

Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of Black Swan, wrote this about his book: "This is a landmark book in social thought, in the same league as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith and The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud."

Lastly, Steven D. Levitt, the renowned economist who wrote the Freakonomics series, said: "There may be no other person on the planet who better understands how and why we make the choices we make."

So, that's the background of the man, here's his name: Professor Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University). His book is entitled "Thinking fast and slow". And here's my defence I told you earlier in the words of Michael Lewis (author of "The Undoing Project"):-

"Danny (Professor Kahneman) made his final decision about God. "I still remember where I was - the street in Jerusalem. I remember thinking that I could imagine there was a God, but not one who cares whether or not I masturbate. I reached the conclusion that there was no God. That was the end of my religious life." (Page 60).

Now, before any die-hard believer of the faith shakes his head at Professor Kahneman's most candid admission about God (or his disbelief), he is not a man to be dismissed so easily. He once said this: "My interest in psychology was as a way to do philosophy. To understand the world by understanding why people, especially me, see it as they do. By then the question of whether God exists left me cold. But the question of why people believe God exists I found really fascinating. I was not really interested in right and wrong. But I was very interested in indignation. Now that's a psychologist!"

Notwithstanding his atheistic stand, Professor Kahneman’s lifelong inquiry is strictly empirical as he leaves the issue of God and his existence exclusively in the hands of others.

This brings me back to the question I started with in this post: Does God care whether or not we masturbate? I can safely say that Professor Kahneman's answer to that question is in the negative. In the first place, to him, who doesn’t subscribe to omnipotence in any form, it is a personal matter.

However, in the Bible, the one who was struck dead for an act that comes closest to masturbation is Onan (Genesis 38). His refusal to pass on his semen to his sister-in-law (whose husband, Er, had died) to continue Er's lineage was a grave act of disobedience.

But then, Onan's offence was not masturbation as it is defined, but coitus interruptus, that is, it is a form of birth control. Theologians will say that he had broken a covenantal law for his failure to complete the orgasmic package. But whatever it is, Onan's hardness (of heart) cost him his life.

Now, when it comes to what the Scripture has to say about masturbation, Dr James Dobson wrote: “Christian people have different opinions about how God view this act. Unfortunately, I can’t speak directly for God on this subject, since His Holy Word, the Bible, is silent on this point. The Bible says nothing about masturbation, so we don’t really know what God thinks about it. My opinion is that He doesn’t make a big issue of it.”

And as discussed above, Onan is not specifically on point. Further, the scriptures about sexual immorality and corruption are too broad to be helpful to address the issue fully. The best guide we have is what Jesus said about adultery in the heart in Mathew 5:27-28. Although the verse does not specifically refer to masturbation, it does to some extent.

Jesus was talking about covetousness here, that is, lust developing in the heart or the appetite to satisfy lust. This appetite has to be consciously and deliberately fed. It is a process, and not just one or two looks of the eye. What our eye thus sees is not lust, but what our heart feeds on is.

So, this form of corruptible lust (or appetite) must be distinguished from sexual desires and its development, without which the commandment to go forth and multiply (in the context of marriage) would be a non-starter. Lust and covetousness thus go together and they are categorically different from sexual desires and marital intimacy.

Therefore, when Jesus talks about lust in the heart, I believe He is indirectly talking about masturbation, but to what end. In other words, I believe it is not the act that is condemned. It is the ultimate object (purpose) of the act that we as believers ought to be concerned with. It’s not so much concerned with the how but the why.

Philosopher Immanuel Kant puts it aptly when he wrote that “its (masturbation) immorality lay in the fact that a man gives up his personality…when he uses himself merely as means for the gratification of an animal drive (lust).” So, lust always demands. It is insatiable. However, love unfailingly devotes. It deeply satisfies.

While different religions view masturbation differently, with Catholicism reserving the highest condemnation for it, and Protestantism and Anglicanism refraining from calling it sin outright, the consensus here is that when masturbation becomes obsessive, chronic and self-directed, it becomes self-destructive, pathological or sin.

When masturbation makes an addict out of you or turns you into someone who looks at another lustfully in order to fuel your fantasies, you know you have crossed the morality or sanity line. By then, your heart will be inextricably entangled with the appetites of the flesh.

Coming back full circle, does God care whether or not we masturbate? I think the answer to that is not whether God makes a big or small issue out of it (aka Dr James Dobson). On this, I take my lead from Jesus.

Of course, apart from adultery of the heart, Jesus made no mention of masturbation in his ministry. As such, I will have to understand the issue at hand by looking at the totality of his life and teachings on earth.

But first, let me say this: Jesus did not come to eradicate masturbation per se. He did not come to stop us from enjoying the gift that our sexuality offers. More importantly, Jesus did not come to condemn us, but to redeem us. He came so that we may live fully and to live fully in Him. In other words, Jesus did not come to minus from life, but he came to add to it and all the pleasures that come with it – be it sexual, physical, emotional, intellectual or spiritual.

It is thus not a religious life of do’s and don’ts. Nobody is keeping scores here. The freedom that comes from Him is not a freedom within regimented or religious boundary. You cross it and you will be morally electrocuted. No. It is a freedom that transforms all man-made boundaries, all rules and laws. It changes our perspective from how we keep His commandments to why. And Calvary, His sacrifice and His grace that pours out from them is the why.  So, when it is said that knowing the truth shall set us free, this freedom is one that transforms us from the inside out, and not just from the outside.

Ultimately, we cannot understand our spiritual growth without understanding that it is something we grow into progressively, taking one day at a time. It is therefore not a sudden, blind sprint to the finishing line. The kingdom of God is always about something growing like a seed, and how that seed blooms over a lifetime into a canopy of outreaching leaves. Our walk in faith and discipline grows through all seasons with the usual stumbles and falls, rising and overcoming.

The late Dallas Willard once wrote that, “Life in all its forms permits distortion within limits, of not becoming what it was meant to be. But in the nature of the case, one who really understands who Jesus is sees their own situation in a realistic light and wants to take measures to remedy their condition by staying as close to Jesus as possible. Discipleship is a natural part of confidence in Jesus as he really is.” And this confidence takes time to take shape, to spread her wings, and take flight.

So, God cares more than we think about masturbation, but He cares even more about how we grow in Him, how we overcome in our own unique ways and season, how we fall and rise again in faith and hope, and how we persevere to complete the race meant for a lifetime - notwithstanding the repeated struggles, the biting remorse, and the moments of broken humanity.

It is said that the heart of the law is love and love is the fulfillment of the law. Conversely, the law of the heart is sin and sin is the defilement of the heart. While the old covenant aims to prevent us from transgressions, the new covenant seeks to empower us to transformation. Calvary therefore reverses the order of submission from form to substance, from appearances to enduring growth, and from the law to love.  

At the end of the day, love will see us through. Love will make a way to keep our eyes always on Calvary. Love will cajoled us back to Him when we fail to live up in thoughts and deeds. And love will gradually replace the perversions of our heart with the perfection of His Spirit.

By which time, masturbation will no longer have an addictive hold over us. We will be able to turn from the pleasure that it once brings to the pleasure that the pursuit of His Spirit brings. The rising of a new dawn in our walk in Him will then be the rising of a new devotion that satisfies our heart adequately and fills us with inexplicable joy. It will be a “hedonic mill” of a different kind. It will be the kind that makes us crave eagerly for the pleasurable things that find favor with our loving Savior. Cheerz.

The human heart.

“I don’t know what the heart of a bad man is like, but I do know what the heart of a good man is like and it is terrible,” so says a Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev.

I do wonder myself, what does a good man look like? Has he no temper? Is he perpetually patient? Is he consistently kind, polite and gracious? What is he like in private when no one sees him? What are his thoughts then? Is he free from lust, hatred, doubts, anger, and pride? If no man is righteous, how does a man who comes closest to being righteous conduct himself? How does he think, talk and act?

Another Russian novelist Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn once wrote this about the human heart, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds; and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

I have been on Facebook for a few years now, and while the postings in my news feed are interesting, what interests me even more are the commentary section of every post. I realize that everyone of us has an opinion. Some touch-and-go views. And others are strongly held, stubbornly protected and boldly pursued. Without fail, the hot-button issues are always religion and politics. I guess those professions/vocations are naturally held in high esteem in our society and the expectations of them are unavoidably high.

Every pastor and politician are held to a high standard of value, virtue and valor and we as followers and voters are scarce to imagine them as anything less than what we have in our hearts hoped them to be. For us, they represent the paragon of character and principles and we can’t think of them as anything less. Even Donald Trump is currently riding with narcissistic grandeur on the moral and messianic high horse and I occasionally pray hard for democracy to come to her senses before it is too late (you see, another strong opinion expressed).

My point again returns to the two Russian novelists' quotes above for even the heart of a good man is terrible and the question is: “are we willing to destroy a piece of our own heart?” (where the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being).

I guess it is easy to say that no man is perfect, but do those who profess it truly believe it (or are we using it as a front to project false humility)? Even admired personalities of history are flawed in their own ways. Winston Churchill was a callous imperialist and an invertebrate racist, Gandhi was a misogynist and engaged in odd sexual experiments, and Mother Teresa was accused of hypocrisy and some doctors called her care centers “home for the dying” due to its deplorable conditions (while she convalesced in a sanitized upper-class hospital). And please don’t get me started with the Catholic sex abuses and how the Cardinals had covered it up by transferring offending priests from one parish to another. So much for good men (women) and their heart?

Alas, we are all looking for a hero, a role model, a mentor, a trusted leader, a pure reformer, an exemplar of virtues, an adulterated character, a stellar referee, and an honest parishioner, but what this fallen world has to offer is way below the ideals that we all unflinchingly hold on to. And strangely, once we had reposed our trust (and devotion) on a particular leader or preacher, we as their undying fan seemed to view them with rose-tinted glasses. In other words, to us, they can do no wrong. Even if they were off the mark in their speech or preaching and in deeds and conduct, we readily overlook, marginalize, sweep under the rug, forgive and forget, justify, and rationalize their faults (even heretical stand) away.

We tend to forget the words written in Romans 3:10-18: “There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.”

Hey, wait a minute, isn’t Apostle Paul talking about the lost – those without God? Sure he is. The lost are lost because they are without God. But are the “found” really living a life so different from the lost? Are the new creation really new or is it a case of new wine poured into old wine-skins?

Well, whether it is openly admitted or not, the line dividing good and evil still cuts through the heart of every human being. In fact, if you bear with me, the founder of the religion of Satan, Anton Szandor Lavey, once wrote this: “On Saturday night, I would see men lusting after half-naked girls dancing at the carnival and on Sunday morning when I was playing organ for tent show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children asking God to forgive and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Sunday night they’d be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. I knew then that the Christian Church thrives on hypocrisy and that man’s carnal nature will (come) out no matter how much is purged or scourged by any white light religion.”

Although I find this observation woefully incomplete (not so much that Anton Lavey is far from being a shining role model of the society), I can’t deny that hypocrisy is somewhat prevalent in all organizations (in particular, or sadly, more so the Church due to the high moral stakes held by the custodians of our conscience).

I write this not to divide or discourage anyone here, but my earnest intention is to confront the reality that many wish to sideline so as to focus on the more glorifying aspect of their faith like amazing grace, heavenly worship, eternal life and bountiful blessings. Personally, I don’t think we can make much progress in our journey of faith if we dismiss, ignore, trivialize or suppress our carnal self or fallen nature. The truth about it is usually more than meets the eye. Billy Graham once said that more than 75% of us believers fell because of sexual temptation.

I am not suggesting that we give our supposedly crucified old man more attention than it deserves. I am suggesting that we stop pretending that he is dead when he is clearly not. Religiosity is in fact the greatest cover-up of an outward change with scarcely any inward transformation to show in the long run. 

A journalist (William Lobdell) once interviewed Benny Hinn at the Four Seasons and this was how the interview went: “He (Benny Hinn) admitted that even one of his daughters, then 11, had a difficult time figuring him out: “One day she asked me a question that absolutely blew me away – from my own child! “Daddy, who are you? That man up there (onstage), I don’t know.” If my own child is asking that, surely the whole world is asking that.” He (Benny Hinn) told me he had a heart condition that God hadn’t cured and his parents had suffered serious medical problems. “That is very difficult for me because I told my daddy to believe,” Hinn said. “But he died. Now I don't know why….My mom has diabetes, my daddy died with cancer. That’s life.””

For me, on a deeply disconcerting level, that is the raw reality that some mega-churches refuse to deal with (or endeavor to insulate their members from). The members only listen to the rosy side of the faith that the preachers want them to hear. They frontload the wealth and health bits, force down their throats everlasting love and assured prosperity, and turn the God of the universe into their personal butler waiting on them hands and feet, but when it comes to confronting sins (lust, pride, contempt, emotional divorce, unforgiveness and seething envy) and the darkness of the soul which manifests itself in doubt, uncertainty and anxiety, the solution is to ride on a wing and a prayer. Believe. Hope. Have faith. Declared righteous. And then come back next Sunday for another feel-good message of complacent triumphalism.

At this juncture, I think the parable of the prodigal son speaks most intimately to me about the human heart and its condition. And yes, I am talking about the other prodigal son, the elder son. While we are familiar with the younger son’s rebellion and repentance, it is the other son that most of us ought to readily (or quietly) identify with.

First, his piety to the father is all about work or servitude. He said, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you.” He has clearly forgotten that all that belongs to his father’s are his. He therefore lived with insecurity, discontentment and rage. And second, he was a sinner who thought that he was a saint. He told his father, “I never transgressed your commandment.” He demonstrated an outward change that is devoid of an inward transformation - new wine into old wineskin.

One author, Ronald Rolheiser of “Sacred Fire” wrote this: “…the famous parable of the prodigal son and his older brother can serve as a paradigm for this: the prodigal son, illustrating the first half of life, is very much caught up in the fiery energies of youth and is, metaphorically, struggling with the devil; the older brother, illustrating the second half of life, struggling instead with resentment, anger, and jealousy, is, metaphorically and in reality, wrestling with God.” That about sums up the struggles of a Christian on his journey to via dolorosa ("the way of grief").

Alas, there is little here left to write except to return to the two quotes I first started with. In a nutshell, it is about the human heart. It is the condition we all struggle with. It is a lifetime struggle. There is no cure for it. In this epic struggle, some of us will mature and grow and some will give in to our carnal desires. And both struggles happen to the same lifetime at different seasons of that life. At one phrase of our life, we struggle with the devil to rebel against God (the younger son). And at the other phrase, we wrestle with God to give in to the devil (the elder son).

In the book “No one sees God: The dark night of Atheists and Believers”, Michael Novak wrote about this struggle: “Biblical faith demands putting childhood behind, and adolescence, and the busy-ness of young adulthood. It requires an appetite for bravery for going into unknown territories alone to wrestle against inner demons, and a willingness to experience darkness, if darkness comes. Faith is not for those who seek only man-made pleasures.”

At this point, I can’t tell if some mega-churches have conditioned their members to seek only the “man-made pleasures” of prosperity and blessings to such excess that they have left their members little to draw upon when they go through their own shadowland of doubts and despair. Let's just hope that we all recognize that the longest journey may be from the head to the heart, but the toughest struggle yet is to transform our heart for God. Cheerz.

To sin boldly and honestly.

Martin Luther once said that we should sin boldly and honestly. The good theologian is not asking us to sin with tassels and streamers so that the whole town will come to know about it. Sin is not to be celebrated but confronted. He is pleading for transparency after the act. He is asking us to be honest about it - to come clean. And in coming clean, we are to bear the full consequences of it.

While some of us sin due to a moment's folly - as a result of personal weakness - all of us are given a choice after the act. And Martin Luther is appealing to us to confront it bravely, with moral courage and remorse. Let me illustrate this with the tale of two lapses.

Both of them are my clients some years back. One of them admitted to me that he had slept with his subordinate and she was many years his junior. Till today, I can clearly remember his words to me, "Don't tell my wife." I asked him if she were to approach me one day and ask me about it out of suspicion, what should I tell her? With a deadpan look, he replied, "Lie to her. Or say I don't know." That was it. That was how he dealt with sin. He wanted to have the cake and eat it or the bed and sleep on it (both beds). Although the last time I checked, he had already broken off with his mistress, his wife knew nothing about it. She was blissfully unaware. To her, he is still his faithful husband.

My second client fell the same way my first client fell. But it was a one-off affair. It claimed he was led astray because he was neglected by his wife. He said his wife had been so busy with the kids that she had no time for him. And he felt so lonely and unwanted until someone gave him the attention he longed after. It was the hook (of attraction) that hid the bait (of marital indiscretion) and he bit into it. He took the bait. Hook, line and sinker. And it was down south from there.

Unlike my first client, who kept his infidelity from his wife, my second client told his wife. He had to let her know out of a sense of obligation. But this was the twist. He also blamed her. Whenever they argued, and she raised the issue, he kept reminding her that she had a part to play for his unfaithfulness. He blamed her for not giving him the attention he wanted.

From that day onwards, he did nothing to save the marriage. He didn't want to admit that he was fully responsible for his actions. His passivity soon estranged their relationship and it degenerated into a point of emotional divorce. 

That’s the two tales I wanted to share and here comes some personal narrative to flesh them out.

I read Martin Luther's admonishment to sin boldly and honestly with much reflection about my own life, my marriage, and my role as a father. This reflection led me to this: I find in me a greater sin than the sin of failing as a person, as a husband or as a father in a moment’s lapse of judgment or a sudden want of personal control (like in my two clients' case). I find that the greater sin is the sin of being invulnerable (or of keeping up with unyielding appearances). While all sins aim to break me, and to reform me if I come before the throne of mercy with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, the sin of invulnerability is sadly unbreakable. It is immune to remorse, self-reproach. It sees repentance as a sign of weakness. It feeds on the pride of the flesh.

And while the kindness of God leads us to salvation, the unkindness of one's heart (hardened by the egotism of invulnerability) leads one to rebellion. Where there is no open, full and unconditional acceptance of our fallibility, I believe there is no enduring repentance of our humanity.

With that, I return to my two clients and their follies. One of them covered it up and the other rationalized it away. One hid the truth and the other denied it completely. While we are all fallible at so many levels, nothing makes us even more irrevocably so than to feed a heart of invulnerability, that is, a heart that refuses to accept the wrong we have committed against another.

For our fallibility is not beyond redemption unless of course we see no need for redemption in the first place. Indeed, to sin boldly and honestly is no easy feat. We struggle with it most notoriously. It is in fact the longest journey we will ever take from our head to our heart. And it takes nothing less than a mature spirit to accept full responsibility for what we have done with courage, honesty and integrity. Nothing less will do. Cheerz.

Unrepentant for life?

What if such a man (or woman) exists among us? A man who is simply unrepentant. He does not see a need to apologize. He just can't believe that he has done anything wrong. He is blind to his own faults. He can't accept that he has hurt others, destroyed their character, marginalized his colleagues, betrayed his friends, and scapegoated those who trusted him.

He views the world in binary terms, that is, in black and white, and what is black is the world and what is white is him and no one else. And if right is as right does, and wrong is as wrong does, then he is always right and is always doing what is right even when many would persistently beg to differ and differ most persistently.

If anything, he suffers from a myopia of the most vexing kind and that is the inability to examine his own heart. Somehow, he sees not. His reflection in the social mirror is missing something crucial for one to be humane, understanding, forgiving, self-reproaching, self-correcting, kind and compassionate.

What is shown to him when he looks in the mirror is not his own flaws as a human being but the many flaws of others, innumerable and endless even. So innumerable in fact that his self-protective mirror conveniently shields his own broken image from sight; very much like an insidious conspiracy of self in favor of self. And if love covers a multitude of sins, then pride - in his case - uncovers many but it is the sins of others and never his to renounce. Never his to disavow, to make amends.

This is a man who holds himself up in the highest esteem and it is perched so high that even he himself finds it impossible to reach. Alas, this same conspiracy has mutated into one where self takes over self and reigns undisputed.

Does such a man (or woman) exist then? Does he or she walk among us? Or is this just a character made up in fictions, fairy tales and science-fantasy? But if truth (or reality) is stranger than fiction, can anyone then say with an admittedly contrite heart that such a person actually exists and he thrives in certain circumstances of life. Some of them even live to a ripe old age, insulated from penury, sickness and blame.

And apart from certified psychopaths, or the mentally disturbed, how does clinical psychiatrists or the DSM-V characterize this peculiar personality type? 
Here is a confession by a successful law professor for your digest:

“Remorse is alien to me. I have a penchant for deceit. I am generally free of entangling and irrational emotions. I am strategic and canny, intelligent and confident…Yet I am not motivated or constrained by the same things that most good people are…(As a child), I envisioned the people in my life as robots that turned off when I wasn’t directly interacting with them…I have never killed anyone, but I have certainly wanted to. I may have a disorder, but I am not crazy. In a world filled with gloomy, mediocre nothings populating a go-nowhere rat race, people are attracted to my exceptionalism like moths to a flame.” (“Confession of a Sociopath” - M.E. Thomas).

Now, to be fair, none of us are spared corruption. Even for those who do not subscribe to the religiously-loaded concept of the original sin, history has shown us what we are capable of. The combustible mix of extreme religion and self-preservation has exposed us to the most horrid chapters in history. Wars fought for land, prestige and   power have been our heritage since the beginning of time. Our struggles are tainted by blood, slavery and massacres. On a personal scale, we are at times ruled by deceit, lust, envy, hatred, arrogance, apathy, revenge, sadism, recklessness, indolence and pride.

No one can whitewash our history of human savagery unless we start all over with a Noah-like annihilation of sorts and a self-administered amnesia jab to leave our sordid past behind for good. Good luck hoping the second time over will be better. But my point is not about the savagery of humanity - that much is undeniable. My point is about our redemption - for as insane is our cruelty, equally empowering is our indomitable conscience and free-will to save us from a point of no return.

With every evil raised to the fort, the good in us also rises to meet the challenge. And such good and evil can co-exist in one lifetime with good ultimately triumph. However, this Manichean struggle of good versus evil will be endless because love's prodigal is hate, and light's blind spot is darkness.

Yet, are there those who simply defy this human leaning towards eventual redemption? And if the arc of history is bent towards justice, then for this rare group, is it bent towards impenitence, unforgiveness, and bitterness?

It is said that one should judge not lest ye be judged. But what if such a person exists regardless of whether he is being judged or not? Worse still, what if it is our silence or goodwill or compassion that we unwittingly extend over and over again to them that aids them in perpetuating their agenda? In the same way that I dread that such people should exist and thrive in the world that I live in, my fear is that the far-sobering reality is never held a hostage to my wishful thinking or religiously-manicured sensibilities.

The world is the way it is because it can't be anything else. 
I can surely wish that I am wrong about the existence of such people but I can't wish that if I am wrong (that is, they do exist), they would be redeemable. The glaring reality of this rapacious world just doesn't offer me that luxury. In other words, my idealism can only inspire me from within to hope for the best in mankind, but that will not change the existence of such rare breed of people whose deathbed's regret is that they have not done enough to crush their enemies, exterminate their opposition, exploit the ones who love them unconditionally, or amass enough power and wealth at the expense of those they deemed dimwitted enough to part with their life's savings, devotion and trust.

For such people, the tolls and trails of the misfortune, misery and suffering they leave behind is just not long enough.  And if Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Kim Jong II and Pol Pot, to name just a few, are historical tyrants to go by, then I guess the only hope I have is twofold: First, that their murderous exploits in this world would be short-lived; and second, that I should always guard my own heart, for out of it flows the issues of life - both good and evil. Cheerz.