My heart weeps for our times. How could it not, given the cruelty, selfishness and ignorance on parade virtually every way we turn. Perhaps if we were less connected, we would not have to cringe so often. But what alternative do we have when every time we switch on our computers and phones, every time we pass a television or electronic billboard, we are confronted with the shadow side of humanity? In these perilous times, that which is immoral can easily be held up as a virtue. Every stand is believed to have the right to a hearing, even those that common sense would judge as unethical.
One tries to walk a righteous path, but denial and confusion come in many forms. Who doesn’t aspire to be the “bigger person”—the one who seeks to understand the other, to put unity over division? But what if the differences we seek to understand have to do with morals and values that violate our deepest principles? In our efforts to seek common ground, we may put ourselves at risk of lowering our standards, our moral compass sent spinning in the name of compassion. It is possible, even, to use our spirituality as a hiding place, in which to become unintentionally complicit in the normalization of evil.
In many ways, we were born into denial. Our parents–the “Greatest Generation”—believed they’d eradicated the shadow of evil for good. Our generation was raised with this as the truth, even if as we grew to realize that evil had not been banished permanently, but merely from mainstream consciousness. We took a crack at changing things through rebellion, politics and good works—to a degree–but the urge to establish something akin to everyday life and adopt the public storyline of common virtues felt necessary to most of us if we were to get on with it. The one who can deny the shadow is the one who has the undivided energy to pursue the American dream, take advantage of the comforts of life, fulfill one’s potential.
It is discomforting, indeed, this late in life to be awakened from the dream only to discover that the only path to hope requires that one must endure the tension one has spent most of one’s life avoiding. It is one thing to yell at the television screen, confronted by the shadow side of humanity. It is another to be confronted by the shadows embedded even in one’s own most deeply-held aspirations. If we are cringing, it is a good thing. It is a beginning.
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