'be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good' loving your enemy and the death of fred phelps

this week both my partner's grandmother and fred phelps died on the same day. i see no need to celebrate the death of one while mourning the passing of another.

romans 12: 21 reads 'be not overcome of evil but overcome evil with good' 

it is not our place to hate fed phelps or to know what was in his heart, what he saw in his final years. we do know that he was thrown out of the church he once led; perhaps as he faced his own death he saw the evil he had done and recoiled in horror. we will probably never know but we know one thing, we know that hate will destroy us as surely as it destroyed fred phelps and we must turn from it while we can.

i offer no prayers for fred phelps, or for my partner's grandmother, as i am an agnostic but i offer hope for others, the hope found in 'overcome[ing] evil with good'

this post contains a link to my own track on the death of fred phelps (and i think this week's other death is in there too) and to a friend's track. he says, in the description to his album:

Please don't throw back all of the hate Fred Phelps spewed with his words and actions during this his time of passing with hate in your own words and actions about it. Instead, counter his legacy with LOVE. That is how you defeat it. If it is with hate, he has won in death, and you aren't much better than he was in life. 

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear." --- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good