I had a thought this morning as I was going about my Saturday errands: is it possible for someone to live in the light without being familiar with the dark? I don’t have an answer to it yet. I think about those white women “spiritual” types who preach love and light without doing any work to correct or so much acknowledge the brutality within themselves and their bloodlines. When I look at someone and truly see the sun within them, they are typically people who know all too well the horrors of the world. They do not shy away from them, they do not deny them, they do refuse to let them win.
This thought came up again as I lazily scrolled through Instagram, stopping on a post from Safe in Austin Rescue Ranch. They do beautiful things for animals and people alike. I also applaud that the stories they share expose the darker side of the world we live in. So many people ask, “how could someone do this?” Jamie Wallace-Griner, the founder, does not. She’s heard the stories, seen the frailties, and pushes on. She cannot undo what was done, but she can remind them over and over again that safety is now all they will know for the rest of their days.
It was reading one of those stories that pushed me over the edge today. I felt violent. I wanted to make the offending parties suffer. Truly suffer. I had to restrain myself. When I feel this way, I have to ask myself, “what do I really want to do about this?” My rage needs a place, a direction. I refuse to hold it. I can either take this energy and exact vengeance or I can do what Jamie does: offer serenity.
What do we do in the battle of good vs evil? Paint it in shades of grey? Accept that some people are awful and move on? Workshop punishments until we find one that sticks? I don’t know that I’m satisfied with any of that. I could shrug this situation off, I know, it does not impact me directly, but that’s a mistake people like me have made too often. I can choose to involve myself this time.
I take inventory of what I can offer. I send Safe in Austin a monetary donation so they can keep doing what they do best. I write this because one of my gifts is conveying life at its rawest, and maybe it will spur someone to involve themselves too. I scour pages and pages of local volunteer listings, eventually selecting an opportunity to pack and provide birthday boxes for children from underserved families. I accept that what I can offer will never feel like it’s enough to me, but to someone else, it will feel like everything. That’s more than enough of a reason to keep doing it.
I’m not writing any of this out of guilt or to prove to you that I’m a “good person.” I’m a complicated mélange of mistakes, unrepentant sinners, and misplaced optimism who’s trying to do a little better each day just like anyone else. I needed to get the thoughts (ones I know many of you also have) out of my head and somewhere visible. My anger and sadness beg to be altered at a subatomic level; shattered and molded into something contributory. If I chose instead to designate myself the reaper of those who sow harm, what would that make me? However just it would seem in the eyes of the societal jury, it would still be cruel, and I am not confident cruelty ends cruelty. I will leave it for someone (or something) who can more securely wield that scythe.
Whatever role we play, whatever we designate tolerable, we have a choice to make. For some, it’s exacted through the will of higher powers, for others, through a more utilitarian lens. A core value I keep returning to is “leave something nicer than you found it.” If that’s all I’m able to accomplish through my bumbling attempts at breaking cycles, I will try to know peace when I’m done.