By Darlington Dibie

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
— Attributed to Edmund Burke

“What baffles me is not that evil exists—but that so many of us see it and do nothing.”
— Darlington Dibie

We live in a world that’s seen more than its fair share of injustice, suffering, and systemic pain. And while evil wears many masks—oppression, violence, poverty, racism—what baffles me most is not the presence of these evils. It is our apathy in the face of them.

Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in Jesus’ timeless parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37).

🛑 The Road to Jericho Is Crowded with Passersby

In the story, a man is attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten, and left for dead. Two men—a priest and a Levite—both see him, but choose to walk on by. They are not the villains of the story in the traditional sense. They didn’t attack the man. But they saw his suffering and did nothing.

That’s where apathy lives—not in the hands of the attackers, but in the hearts of those who refused to respond.

“Apathy is not the absence of knowledge—it is the absence of compassion in motion.”

🤝 The Samaritan: A Model of Disruptive Compassion

Then comes the Samaritan—a man from a group despised by the Jews. Yet he’s the one who stops, stoops, and serves. He becomes the change the situation demanded. He shows us that compassion isn’t convenience—it’s conviction. Love isn’t a feeling—it’s a function.

He could have said: “Someone else will help.”
Instead, he said: “I will.”

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” — Gandhi
The Samaritan was that change. He didn’t tweet about justice; he paid for it.

🧠 What Baffles Me Is Our Apathy

We scroll past real suffering every day:

A family crushed by economic hardship.

A child isolated by trauma or disability.

A community torn by prejudice. And like the priest and the Levite, we’ve learned to rationalize our silence with excuses like:

“I’m too busy.”

“It’s not my business.”

“It’s not my fight.”

But indifference is not neutral. It’s a vote for the status quo.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

🔥 A Call to Courageous Compassion

If the Good Samaritan teaches us anything, it’s this:

Don’t just walk the Jericho road— change what happens on it.

Let’s be the people who stop.
Who speak up.
Who act.
Who love.

Because what baffles me more than evil—is when good people, blessed with strength and voice, see it… and do nothing.

✍ Final Thought:

“The Church does not need more knowledge. It needs more courage. The world doesn’t need more observers. It needs more Good Samaritans.”

Will you be the change? Or will you be another passerby?