BEING FOR THE LIGHT AND GOOD and Not AGAINST THE DARK

This is a response to a comment made recently on an FB post I shared by my beloved ex-husband

Rick Pieters

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He commented that “We must stand up for the good and against the dark.” And in this time when the dark is screaming with its cruel voice, it seems like this is correct. And in quickly replying to comments, I agreed with Rick. I said, “Yes, of course.” But then later I thought, NO. we mustn’t be against the dark, we must only be FOR the Light. The Light erases the darkness. Turn on a light in a dark room, and voila, the darkness is gone. But if we walk into a dark room and say “Stop, being dark,” though we stand firmly against the dark, it stays dark. After awhile our eyes adjust to the dark, and we can see a little bit. And we begin to think that is normal. So, the dark has won us over to its side. But if we simply walk across the room and turn on the light switch, we can see perfectly, and we are suddenly living in the light, and not squinting in the dark.

What we have done by trying to be against the darkness is to give the darkness power over us.

Everyone is familiar with the expression, What you resist will persist. And yet, we persist in resisting constantly with the same outcome. What we resist continues to persist. Isn’t that just the craziest thing?

After the 2016 election, there was the great Resist movement. We were reminded constantly to not stop resisting. And it kept us feeling good about ourselves, but it didn’t really do much. In fact, we saw what we were resisting getting stronger and stronger. But we kept resisting. Until a couple of months ago when George Floyd was killed and Black Lives Matter surged into the streets and the consciousness of America. And the difference, the reason that so much has happened so quickly, is because Black Lives Matter is FOR the good. Not against the dark. Yes, we want the police to stop killing black people. But the underlying theme, and the energy that is propelling the movement is FOR Black Lives Mattering. The people in the streets, for the most part, are driven by the desire to make life better FOR Black people.

It may seem like a subtle difference, and yet its impact is immense. In the sixties Dr. King’s movement was FOR Civil Rights. FOR the betterment of Black People’s lives.

Anything that you push against makes that which you are pushing against push back harder, thus energizing that which you are pushing against.

So, when we say stand against the dark, just the word and action of being against builds the strength of the dark.

But when we are FOR the Light, the light continues to shine and blot out the darkness. And the more Light we shine, the more the darkness tries to hide, but if we go around turning on all the lights, it makes it more and more impossible for the darkness to find hiding places.

As we stand right now facing the greatest darkness that this country has seen since the Civil War, we must Stand For the Light. And we must stand For the Goodness. And we must stand For Love of our fellow human beings, and we must stand For Compassion. We must be FOR THE LIGHT, and the darkness will have nothing to push against, and it will lose its strength.

The difficulty we have in being FOR the Light and the Goodness, and not being against the darkness, is that our culture is addicted to drama, and angst, and we end up spending most of our time talking about how awful the darkness is. This, of course, does nothing but energize the dark.

It does take self-discipline to disengage from the drama and the complaining and the firing up each other’s fears. But this is a time that calls for discipline, and for Action FOR the Good. For the LIGHT.

Please join me in Standing FOR the Light, and In the Light, and as more and more Lights are turned on the darkness will disappear, as if by magic. But not magic, the simple fact that Light ends darkness.

Blessed be,

Barbara

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