Shadows and Light

By John Cory, Reader Supported News

22 August 17

I've been trying to live my life so that in the hour of my death I would rather feel joy, than fear.

eather Heyer was killed with hate — hate that was fueled by ignorance and wrapped in the flags of fanaticism and bigotry.

And the long dark shadow that haunts America fell across us all that day.

The man who occupies The People’s House was incapable of uttering words of solace or inspiration and instead spewed old tropes about outside agitators, moral equivocation about our culture under attack, and law and order: who had permits to protest and who did not — whose violence was worse or better — whose rights were more valuable — and that there were fine people marching there too.

In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Dr. King wrote:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider ...

We have been here before, standing in the long dark shadows of bigotry and intolerance; we’ve seen the faces of the mob twisted in vitriolic hate and ignorance, heard the demands for purity of allegiance and the targeting of The Other.

There is a moment in the film “Judgment at Nuremberg” when Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster) tries to explain to Judge Dan Haywood (Spencer Tracy) how the evil of Nazism could ever have happened in the first place:

There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that — can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: “Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.” It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights?

This churlish pretender president struts across the country like Narcissus in search of a gaudy reflection pool of adulation and admiration of his own warped image, while he peddles a poisonous elixir of chaos, fear, and prejudice in order to line his own pockets with the lives of others. He sells abhorrence in cheap clothing.

A long dark shadow crawls across our heart and haunts our soul.

But there is a law about shadows and light, a natural law as immutable as any, and it says you cannot have shadows without light. There is always light, no matter how faint or distant, even if only a silver shining through a crack. As Leonard Cohen said, “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

And we never know from where that light will come or who will shine it upon us. During the dark evil of Nazism, there shone light from the most unexpected places:

Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who defied his superiors and issued visas to Polish and Lithuanian Jews enabled them to transit through Japan as they fled the Nazis. It is said that on the day he left, he was still stamping papers and visas as his train pulled out of the station and he tossed his stamp to people to use on the pre-signed blank sheets of paper he hurled to them. It was estimated that he helped save 6,000 Jews.

Irena Sendler personally smuggled 400 Jewish children out of the Warsaw Ghetto and with her network of underground support helped another 2,100 children escape Poland from 1942 to 1945.

Nicholas Winton, an ordinary British stockbroker, managed to help save 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the war.

“Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II,” by Norman Gershman, tells the story of Albanian Muslims who protected, sheltered, and aided over 2,000 Jews during the Nazi occupation of Albania and Kosovo.

During the struggle for Civil Rights, there was much darkness, death, and violence against the soul and body of Black America. But the light was held high for all to see by Dr. King, John Lewis, Rosa Parks, James Farmer and the Freedom Riders, and so many more.

In the midst of darkness, there is always light.

Heather Heyer died in a loving act of defiance against the darkness of hatred.

And the man in the White House could only voice sympathy for the devil.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

- Maya Angelou

We can look for the light in the darkness or we can be the light.

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