I’ve been feeling frustrated with my social media feeds lately.
There’s so much fucking Love and Light.
(sun-lit fields and yoga poses and paragraph upon paragraph of wisdom)
It’s blinding me.
(I will be the first to admit that this probably bothers me so much because I am complicit in it)
I want to say that I love Love and Light as much as the next person
and I’ll be the first to agree that we are living in dark times, and that perhaps a counter-effort is required.
And yet something doesn’t sit right with me.
Because there’s a kind of Love and Light that we use to cope with our own discomfort
rage
grief
hurt
confusion
rather than to sit with others in their darkness.
The Love and Light I’m thinking of washes over complexity with the un-nuanced brush of positivity.
At best, it’s naive.
And at worst, it’s damaging.
When we the privileged offer up Love and Light
(especially the kind that’s proferred in a comments box)
to those who lack what we may have in
safety
shelter
race
money
health
ability
we fail to see others as whole
and we fail to create safe spaces for those who are in darkness
who do not see themselves represented in our positive worldviews.
I think it takes something more, or different, than Love and Light
to venture into the darkness
to get to know it
to get comfortable there.
The light I want to carry into the darkness isn’t the blinding glare of denial,
but the light that becomes apparent when our eyes adjust
a light that was there all along.
Here, in this light, all of you is welcome. The dark parts, too, ever so softly lit.
This light gently uncloaks shame. It holds fear until fear loses its hold.
In this light, you can be both and.
Your grit is as welcome here as your grace.
You can just show up. The dark parts too.