A Light in the Darkness

I have a wonderful friend who is a magnificent stand for light and laughter in this world, but recently was compelled to write to her in the wake of the murders in Newtown, CT.

My Dear Sweet Friend

How I love you – and how I adore and embrace your message of light and laughter as a service to this world.  But I have been watching your posts over the last two days since the most recent horrific event in our world has unfolded. And there is something that just doesn’t sit right with me. In many of your posts you say that we ought to turn off the media and delete those stories in an effort to send our message to that same set of sources that they should stop the hype and backward glorification of these killers and perpetrators. And for me that is too passive.

To any act of violence there are three courses of action: retaliatory violence (attacking back in some form of revenge), passivity and non-violent resistance (taking away the power of their status seeking), and a third way that is active, positive action.  I am of the third way. I cannot simply turn it off least they (the media or some future on-looking perpetrator-to-be) think I don’t care or can’t be bothered. Well I am bothered – I am bothered beyond my ability to contain myself in non-action.

But let me say a bit about how I perceive your message of hope.  It is not wrong – not in the least.  In fact it is the only message we should preach.  It is the context of that hope with which I have issue.  Just as you cannot see in total darkness, you cannot see in total light.  If we look only for the positive in our world, accent only the good that exists, and turn our backs on the darkness, the hatred and the violence of our chaotic world, we run the risk of being blinded by the light.

Life is painful and chaotic, and that pain is exacerbated by hoping for or wishing that is would somehow be different than it is.  Suffering, says the Buddha, is caused by trying to deny the reality of the now and wishing for something better. We first have to accept that there are people in this world who are so alienated and lost that their only thought is to inflict that pain on others.  Whether we call that evil or the devil or mental illness does not matter. Whether that manifests in genocide or warring or the slaughter of innocent children (close to home or on the other side of the planet) is irrelevant.  It exists; and my first calling is to recognize that it does exist.

It is against that pain and suffering that you and I have been called to stand as a beacon. It is in those dark places that we have to shine even more brightly. But I must first acknowledge the pain and suffering and then with the greatest compassion light a candle of hope. And that hope that we bring is the hope for and in human connection. Our greatest darkness happens when we are alone and unconnected to others.  Our greatest lightness is when we are embraced in the loving arms of another. Murder, genocide and war are places where the human fabric has been torn apart, where lost and alone people can somehow ignore the brotherhood or sisterhood of the human on the other end of their weapon. Killing cannot happen any other way.

Love is the antidote, caring and compassion are its vehicles. Every sage who ever walked on this planet has instructed us to love our enemies, not just our friends. Anyone can love those who love. Anyone can shine brightly when surrounded by others of the light.  That is the easy part. But to stand up with tears of grief streaming down your cheeks and shine a ray of hope, is the really hard part of this work. To name the darkness and embrace another, to become a contagious infection of caring and compassion and spread love where there is none, that is the real work.

So I will not turn it off – not because I get some twisted horror-movie thrill out of human carnage – but because I am called to stand up to evil and darkness and not back down, and not dampen my light. The hope I peddle is that if and when we love each other, there can be no more of this pain. (And I just want to say that I am as crushed by the death reports coming from Afghanistan or the Gaza strip as I am from Newtown CT.  Every soldier was once a baby rocked by his or her mother; every one of us had a beautiful future in front of us and brought a sparkle to our parent’s eyes.) We need to spread the message that the best action to prevent violence is the bonds we forge between each of us when we love and embrace each other.  In a message to the parents of the children that attend our school, I said that now is the time to start talking to the other parents, get to know them, make them part of your family – love each other as your own.

Now is a time of action, and the battlefront is where the darkness is the deepest.  Your message is right on but my request is that we wage radical love in those darkest places of the human experience. I can love more powerfully than anyone can hate, and when you and I join together, that becomes exponentially greater. And that is how we will win, one at a time; one more at a time; every time we say “we” and we mean one more person that the last time we said it. And we will overcome the darkness.