A candle can help to banish evil

WHEN something terrible happens, I usually receive anguished emails from readers and friends, expressing gloom at the state of the world.

There are times I share that despair. Watching television footage of the tearful widow of Sir David Amess visiting the site of his vile killing with other devastated family members, was one such moment.

Shock and disbelief can be quickly transformed into a universal pessimism that overwhelms — like a stifling black cloth over your face.

The world feels full of hatred — from the detestable language used by a politician like Angela Rayner to the appalling abuse meted out on social media, to the kind of twisted extremism that regards slaughter as ‘just’.

In those moments I too conclude that the Good is in terminal retreat, while triumphant Evil stalks this earth. Yet it’s not the truth. We’d all be driven mad if we bid farewell to hope — and sadly some people do succumb to utter despair.

I have read many letters to this column which I file under ‘angst’ — meaning ‘a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general’.

How to fight it? By imagining the transformative effect of a single candle in a darkened room and deliberately lighting one in your mind.

Actually visualise that action, just before you decide what the light represents.

So I think of the wonder in the face of parents as they cradle their newborn, the uplifting videos I watch online which show human kindness. And so on — too many to list.

Now I’m meditating on the outpouring of respect, gratitude and love for Sir David Amess abroad in the land.

I’m focusing on every single flower laid where his good life ended — and realising that every bloom (and every tear shed) represents something indestructibly good.

Oh, and doesn’t all that greatly outnumber the single terrible act of hatred that took away his life? It always will.

■ Bel answers readers’ questions on emotional and relationship problems each week. Write to Bel Mooney, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB, or email bel.mooney@dailymail. co.uk. Names are changed to protect identities. Bel reads all letters but regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.