In the past couple of weeks I've heard a mother's pain as she discussed the incarceration of her son for the murder of his daughter, the shame of a brother molested as a child, and heard the confusion of a pastor burning out. I have listened to the honor of the cruelest of childhood abuses and the resulting life out of control. I have met people trying to escape a sinful past, yet somehow wanted to keep the statuesque. I met a stranger estranged by her family. I met a mother at her wits end, busy running the wheel in the rat cage. Can't forget the stranger enraged with life, fully entwined in the lie that the world is against them. Why? Why share with me? What relief comes from exposing their secrets and shame?
Simply, secrets come to the light. It's not my ability to empathize or understand, but rather a lack of judgment that makes me a light. A lack of judging that I've learned in sharing my own secrets and shames with others. Others who responded in love and without bias of judgment.
In Jim's blog on Saturday He quoted Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now. Richard says, "Remember, Jesus never said, 'This is my commandment: thou shalt be right about what's wrong (especially with another).' But that is the only way that both the ego self-image and the dualistic monkey-mind know how to frame reality - something must be wrong, and it’s not me. But it’s not really working so well, is it? Why? Because it is a fatally flawed paradigm and perspective. It is an amazing arrogance that allows immature Christians to so readily believe that their limited mental understanding of things is anywhere close to the full understanding of Jesus. Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life' (John 14:6). I think the intended effect of that often misused line is this: If Jesus is the Truth, and you're not filled with Him to overflowing, then you probably aren't the truth (especially if you’re arguing 'against' someone), not even a little bit."
Point is that in those moments when these people choose to share and open up with me, I am, at least momentarily, walking in the truth that is Jesus Christ. The second I start trying to fix, diagnose, point out what's wrong, condemn, quote scriptural solutions... that is the moment the other shuts down. That is the moment the light stops shinning, the love stops flowing, and the work of God begins to be my work.
Even when we are the ones that seek the advice, that vent our frustrations, and confess our frailties and failures solutions are not what we need. We want them. We beg for someone, anyone to give us a practical step, a plan of action to get us out of the mire. But what we really need is for someone to stand with us as a light so that we can see how to get out ourselves. In getting out ourselves, we can avoid falling into the trap again. In getting out ourselves that evil in us that took us there in the first place dies, and the good of Christ is resurrected in it's place. Being a light is giving a hug when someone is crying. It is asking questions when someone is confused. It is walking away when someone rejects it. It is jumping in when someone asks.
Secrets come to the light. Be a light of love to those in your world.
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