You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud
Who does not know peace
Who fights for a scrap of bread
Who dies because of a yes or a no.
Consider if this is a woman,
Without hair and without name
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter.
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children,
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.
~Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz
There is darkness inside of me and around me. It covers me like a heavy cloak that I try to rid myself of but it strangles me harder, sticking to me like wet cloth. Sometimes, I try to forget it is there. I try to let the light shine through and warm me, but it never leaves, always creeping loudly to dethrone me.
It was there when I met the young man at the coffee shop a few weeks ago. I judged him instantly. Punk. Criminal. Nuisance. Yet, I smiled at him when he asked me a question and used my pleasant voice, because I needed to be the nice one, the person in control. I forgot that I am never in control. In a few hours, I learned of his story, his history, his pain, regret, hope, and joy. As he smiled at me with warmth and touched me with his words, the light momentarily pierced the darkness but the light was not from me.
With darkness, we are made aware of the light. And I realize that when I forget or try to ignore the darkness, I drift into complacency or ambivalence. I forget beauty and love and truth. I am beginning to realize the importance of recognizing the darkness inside of me and not fighting it on my own, but allowing grace and redemption to make their marks.
We must also never forget the darkness in this world and remember the darkness of history. If we ignore it or choose to forget it, then we allow it to win. If we do not let it make us uncomfortable, suffer, grieve, then we have lost our humanity and hope.
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