I’ve been struggling.
Someone I know has hurt somebody I care for. The crime is big enough that it will take years, maybe decades, to repair the damage. I am angry. And I know where he lives.
I began by being angry about the unfairness of it…….. the injustice of it. I was angry about the pain and sadness that it caused. I was angry that a criminal had profited and that a good person had been harmed. I was angry that the systems in place, the law, the courts, and the police were not bringing justice to bear. I wanted the criminal punished……..now.
So far…..so good.
I am, by nature, a fixer. I think that all of us are, too a degree……especially men. In my frustration at the unfairness of the situation, I began to consider how I could fix this injustice. I began to consider how to help the police. But, as my frustration grew, I began to dwell on ways that I could bring this mess to a just conclusion. Before long I was fantasizing on ways to hurt the criminal…….. ways that were far beyond the call of justice. Looking back I had quietly slipped down the slope from unfairness……. to injustice….. to frustration…….. to anger and finally to vengeance. I found myself in a very black place. How did I get there? There was no instant of transition. Each step was logical, appropriate and, worst of all, very comfortable. Nobody suggested this path to me. It came from somewhere deep inside of me. I can now see that the blackness was there inside me all along, waiting quietly for a situation like this to wake it up.
I think that the black place is there in all of us. It always has been. It is part of our human nature. It is just as much a part of us as generosity, honor, and love. In a way, just as there is a little piece of God in each of us, there is a little piece of Satan as well. How we run our lives hinges largely on how we balance these two sides of our nature. Some people spend most of their time in the black place, others dwell mostly in the light. Most of us move back and forth……. without giving it much thought.
A wise old indian said to his grandson:
“I feel like there are two wolves fighting inside of me…..one is kindness, generosity and love…… the other is anger, hatred, and vengeance.”
The boy said: “Grandpa…… which one will win? ”
The old man replied: “The one that I feed.”
I will try to feed the better side of my nature. In our public conversation, I feel that we have, at the insistence of the angry talking heads in the media, fed the baser side of our natures. We need to, as a nation and as individuals, turn back from the slide down the slope to anger. This is a choice that we can make. We can WILL this to be so……….. even if the other guy doesn’t. Even if the criminal is unrepentant. Even if we are unable to heal the world, we can heal ourselves
“Lord help me to feed the better side of my nature.”
“Lord please heal the criminal who harmed my family.”