This day has been a day of reckoning with what is easily missed or goes unseen unless you search for and seek them out; the shadows in our lives. Yes, we all have them admittedly or not. They start early, they really never go away, they loom in the rafters of our lives that make strange sounds, create this sense of unsure footing and worst of all create the barriers that hold us back from accomplishing what we otherwise would attain. The shadows are the scars of our past and are induced from an array of firing positions.
Bad or nonexistent parenting is a rich source of these shadows that usually serve as evils in our lives. They can come, and usually do, from really bad choices we make with our lives, our hearts, our bodies, our families, our friends and worst of all, ourselves! Just today a very clear reality was brought to me in the midst of a difficult yet rich conversation with a young person wanting to right a life for the journey still ahead. That reality .... the only thing that will make a shadow disappear is the admitting of light, right?
So the deep introspection of this day has taken me down the pathway of ferreting out the shadows in my own life but as importantly in realizing all over again that sitting in each seat in my classes, around me at church, listening to me sing are hosts of shadows many of which will never see the light of day but will haunt, impede and wreck an otherwise wholesome, productive, Godly life!
Having now taught over seven thousand students since my retirement from Goodyear now eight years ago, as I have engaged and gotten to really know so many of those young minds and lives, it is haunting to think about some of the giant shadows those seats house within the fragile bodies we possess for but a relatively short while. Drugs, bad company, addictions, poor choices, following bad leadership, rationalizing away the wrong (cognitive dissonance reduction) are all part of the legion of shadows far too many fight with or try to ignore.
I have decided long ago that what separates Man from the animals is that animals cannot cannot rationalize their world but Man can and does. Rationalization is that mental means that allows us to sleep at night even with the wrongness of our lives by convincing our minds that it, whatever the it is, is really not that bad and it will be better tomorrow.
The operative term is "light" for I have realized all over again how powerful a force light is in a dark world. Truth, when it hurts, rests at the core of this thesis but such a difficult place to arrive at times isn't it! Being truthful first with yourself is perhaps the most difficult song to sing I have learned and seen and yes, experienced. When transparency is absent, shadows of constraint abound!
My students have all heard me speak about safety nets. If you see a trapeze artist operating above a safety net, he is cheating me, the paying customer, of seeing his best for if he fails, death and injury flow in. Remove the safety net and the artist will fly more flawlessly, right? The shadows of a life can be part of the arsenal of safety nets we all aspire to have around us for they ease the pain, keep us from being our best and allow us to muddle in place instead of stretching to the best we can be! My daily walk is now focused at safety net destruction in my students. I want them to do their best for when they hit that hallowed place, competitiveness can be achieved in long term. That is where I want all my students to reside and grow.
This day I have seen the effects of lifelong shadows in a life that is now deeply anchored into the very fiber of a life. That great news is that that life is now seeking to cut away all the debris of the shadows and move to the light of day. That light, however, is a capital L for it is the LIGHT of our Lord that created us and wants the very best for each of us. So today I have been made aware all over again that leaders run to the sound of the gunfire and winners seek more and more of the Light; that Light that saves and does not destroy. That Light and gives more than it takes. That Light that perfects and not demands.
I will close by asking you the question ... have you done a Shadow inventory lately? I have and i highly suggest that exercise for each of you, please.!
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