Reflecting the Light into the Dark Places

I get a lot of questions about why I write. Most people think I’m trying to write a bestselling book or run for political office. Maybe make a few bucks, or get on TV. 

Let me tell you a story and maybe that’ll help provide some context. 

During the Second World War, German paratroopers invaded the island of Crete. When they landed at Maleme, the islanders met them, bearing nothing other than kitchen knives and pitch forks. 

The consequences of resistance were devastating. The residents of entire villages were lined up and shot.

Alexander Papaderous was just six years old when the war started. His home village was destroyed and he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When the war ended, he became convinced his people needed to let go of the hatred the war had unleashed. 

To help the process, he founded the Institute for Peace at this place that embodied the horrors and hatreds unleashed by the war.

One day, while taking questions at the end of a lecture, Papaderous was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?” There was nervous laughter in the room.

He opened his wallet, took out a small, round mirror and held it up for everyone to see. 

During the war he was just a small boy when he came across a motorcycle wreck. The motorcycle had belonged to a German soldier. Alexander found pieces of a broken mirror lying on the ground. 

Later he tried to put the broken mirror back together but couldn’t, so he took the largest piece and scratched it against a stone until its edges were smooth and it was round. He used it as a toy, fascinated by the way he could use it to shine light into holes and crevices.

He kept that mirror with him as he grew up. Over time it came to symbolize something very important. It became a metaphor for what he might do with his life.

“I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know.”

“Nevertheless, with what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world–into the black places in the hearts of men–and change some things in some people.”

“Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about.”

We are all wandering through a difficult time in history. War in Ukraine, inflation, shootings in Uvalde & Highland Park, political division, gun violence in our cities and bitter disagreement on the issue of abortion. Meanwhile, ordinary people are trying to find meaning in the turmoil; trying to sort it all out. Like Alexander Papaderous hopelessly trying to put the mirror pieces back together.  

It’s one of the reasons why I wrote Why We Lost Faith in Our Institutions and Each Other last month. Author David Brooks calls this loss of faith “the great disembedding.” We once embraced tight communities, and hierarchical, human organizations with prescribed social norms. You know, those core institutions made America the greatest place in earth?

Our core institutions have value, even if all our institutions are flawed in some way. For all their imperfections, core institutions are the best way to transfer goodness to future generations.

Instead, we now embrace a hyper-individualistic way of life. A society almost totally devoid of social, emotional or physical contact.

A few years ago the Wall Street Journal ran a piece by Erica Komisar. Ms. Komisar is a psychoanalyst and author. She has been in private practice in New York City for 25 years. 

The article focused on why so many people are struggling. Ms. Komisar provides her perspective in the article:

“One of the most important explanations—and perhaps the most neglected—is declining interest in religion. This cultural shift already has proved disastrous for millions of vulnerable young people.”

According to a 2018 Gallup Study, half of Americans are church members, down from 70% in 1999. Even among those who define themselves as “religious”, church membership has fallen nine percent. 

At the same time, the rates of every type of mental health issue are up. Way up.

Addiction is up.

Self-harm is up.

Anxiety is up.

Depression is up.

Divorce is up.

Everything is up. 

Perhaps Ms Komisar is on the right track. In an age of increasing anger, loneliness, and narcissistic individualism, faith in a higher power provides an antidote. Nearly every religion I know touts generosity, gratitude and friendship. And, most importantly, believing that you are not the center of the universe. 

One of the primary benefits of faith is to provide a sanctuary in which we can withdraw from the chaos of our world and seek stillness. Respite from the noise and commotion of daily life.

In our community we’ve recently lost five, good young people. All acquaintances of my 21 year old daughter. Some were suicide, others were drug overdoses. Fentanyl played a role in at least two of the deaths. I wrote about the dangers of Fentanyl here. It’s truly heartbreaking and incomprehensible to lose five, twenty year old kids in 30 days.

But when you lose young people, belief in a higher power creates, at least, the perception of interconnectedness in the random and unexplainable events in the universe. The occasional, yet incomprehensible, pain and loss that can accompany life. 

People we love get sick.  People we love get hurt.  People we love die. 

Terrible things occasionally happen to some very good people. But, we will all die someday. It’s one of the few remaining things we can all agree on. 

We can attempt to handle some of those events better by, at least, surmising that there is some point in all of it.

It wasn’t until almost 1950 that we recognized the obvious connection between cigarettes and Cancer. That’s 85 years of heart/lung damage before someone made the connection. So many people died horrible deaths. Seems pretty silly in retrospect, huh?

Perhaps it will take us another 85 years to complete the connection between our loss of faith and our current afflictions. 

So to the question about why I write for complete strangers, I give you the words of Alexander Papaderous

“With what I have I can reflect light into the dark places of this world–into the black places in the hearts of men–and change some things in some people. Perhaps others may see and do likewise.”

And maybe along the way we can work together, you and I, to find meaning in these troubled and confusing times.

My writing is intended to be a conversation. That means you have to participate. C’mon, I know you have an opinion on what is going on in the world. Let’s hear it. Nobody will show up at your door. I’ll respond, even if we disagree with each other.

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