A World Without Darkness

Found this on the web, someone’s vision statement:

"Imagine a world where money was no longer the means of exchange of services but rather love and enthusiasm as its primary exchange. A world full of love and so much diversity that each individual’s enthusiasm became the driving force behind one’s life work and one’s life work was as distinctive as one’s own fingerprint. A world where every job and every service had its own caretaker that performed its tasks with so much love and care they freely wanted to giveaway these services. Tell me? What would this world look like? A world of harmony and service where all needs were met and provided by someone that was just as equally grateful to give as well as they were ready to receive. A world of haves without the not’s. A world of abundance without the lack. A world of love without the suffering. Can you imagine this?"

Hmmm... In light of what I have learned these past few years, and what I have just read in “Owning Your Own Shadow” by Robert Johnson, I see a certain danger in some parts of the above ‘vision’ for a desired future. “A world of haves without the not’s. A world of abundance without the lack. A world of love without the suffering.” Sounds like a world without darkness, without loss, without destruction, without a chance to learn and grow... No, I do not want to imagine a world like that, much less live in one.

I’ve always loved the Prayer of St. Francis of Assissi, now it humbles me even more with its profound wisdom:

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen."

In true humility he asked to be an instrument in bringing the naturally-occurring opposites (love, pardon, faith, hope, light, and joy) of these parts of human nature – hatred, desire to injure, doubt, despair, darkness, sadness – into balance of harmony. But he never once asked to have the ‘bad’ stuff eradicated, erased, annihilated, not even denigrated, for he knew that this is as it should be, in order for life to go on.

This is the Great Order of things, one that we can only begin to know as we move toward wholeness.

In the meantime, I too say, Amen – Thy Will Be done.

And in the meantime, though I that I too, am not above running for the light when I am scared, please give me all the darkness that I can handle, that I need, for growth, healing, and wisdom.