Be comforted; the world is very old,
And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have done.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “A Shadow”
The shadow’s the thing.
If I no longer see shadows as “dark marks,”
as do the newly sighted,
then I see them as making some sort of sense of the light.
They give the light distance;
they put it in its place.
They inform my eyes of my location here, here O Israel,
here in the world’s flawed sculpture,
here in the flickering shade of the nothingness
between me and the light.
~Annie Dillard from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
A shadow is hard to seize by the throat and dash to the ground.
~Victor Hugo from Les Miserables
In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.
~Blaise Pascal
These days I find myself seeking safety hiding in the shadows under a rock where “not-really-conservative and not-really-liberal” moderates like me tend to gather to seek safety and commiserate together.
Extremist views predominate simply for the sake of differentiating one’s political turf from the opposition. There is barely any discussion of compromise, negotiation or collaboration as that would be perceived as a sign of weakness.
Instead it is “my way or the wrong way.”
I say “no way,” as both sides act intolerably intolerant of the other.
The chasm particularly gapes wider in any discussion of faith issues. Religion and politics have become angry neighbors constantly arguing over how high to build the fence between them, what it should be made out of, what color it should be, should there be peek holes, should it be electrified with barbed wire to prevent moving back and forth, should there be a gate with or without a lock, who pays for the labor and whether an immigrant with a work permit is available to do the labor. In a country founded on the principle of freedom of religion and the pursuit of happiness, far more people now believe our forefathers’ blood was shed for freedom from religion in order to be happy.
Give us the right to believe in nothing whatsoever or give us death. Perhaps both go together.
And so it goes. We bring out the worst in potential leaders as facts are distorted, ethics abandoned, the truth stretched or completely abandoned, unseemly pandering abounds and curried favors are served for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Enough already.
In the midst of this morass, we who want to believe will still choose to believe and our next challenge is for believers to actually get along with one another. This is no longer a given. We have chosen to reside in the shadows of conflict, argument, and abuse of our fellow believers.
Still, there is Light for those who seek it out. No need to remain hiding in the shadowlands.
I’ll come out from under my rock to face the onslaught, if you do.
In fact…I think I just did.
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