By Rev. Glenn Neil Stocking
Ferguson is burning tonight and the nation looks for answers. Two sides are emerging on the outer edges of the question with most of us as usual somewhere in-between. One extreme stands in the name of law and order and their arguments seem reasonable from their perspective. On the other extreme lie unanswered questions and a craving for justice. The questions too seem reasonable from that perspective and most of us slide back and forth hoping the status quo will reassert itself and normalcy will re-emerge.
About 2500 years ago Plato recorded the thoughts of his teacher Socrates including his allegory of the cave that offers an interesting look at perspective and our social environment’s impact on its development. The cave was home to several persons who for purposes of the illustration were restricted to observing shadows of objects and people upon the cave wall without ever knowing the source of the shadows or that they even were shadows. In their minds the shadows were the real world.
All of us have our own version of the cave in our story. The opinions of our elders, siblings and extended families helped shape our own world view. Our tribe was always right and those folks on the other side of the hill have always been misguided. How easy our lives could be if those views were flawless and capable of holding up to the light of truth. Like the shadows on the cave wall however, those misinformed beliefs we are often willing to die for evaporate without a trace when illuminated by the truth.
In the allegory of the cave one person is released and brought to the surface into the light of day. Socrates describes how that person’s vision would adjust to the new reality seeing less at first and gradually able to understand more and more of their new world. Our Spiritual awakening follows a similar route for most of us. At first the light of knowledge may be so blinding we are unable to see anything of our surroundings, but slowly we see shapes in the brilliance and reflections of things in pools of water or panes of glass.
Spiritually we begin to understand that those “others” are more like us than not. They need food and water, shelter and a reason to be. They seek the same answers we seek. They cry when sad and laugh and dance when happy. They are us in all but name and the name is self-chosen not imposed by any god. They may have emerged from a different cave where the shadows were given different names and different stories but they were still shadows and no more real than the shadows of our own past.
The light we walk into is the same light. Our truth is their truth. Our shadows are no more real than their shadows. As we explore this new understanding of truth together a new experience arises for each of us; one that releases the shadows of our past and embraces the new truth being revealed to us both.
In Ferguson the establishment of law and governance draws on generations of privilege and a mindset that leans toward interpretations of social rules as they understand them. They have fallen into the trap or cave where the story has become the rules exist to protect the enforcers of the rules. Government in their view serves the government first and begrudgingly serves the populace only as a means of maintaining the status quo. Protect people sure, but only so the people will continue to ignore the government and demand little of it. Provide services too, but only enough to remove cause for the people to demand more. Build a bridge for everyone’s convenience, but only if it improves commerce and profits. Maintaining the bridge is an expense less easily sold, because no one is inconvenienced and commerce is not impeded.
From the other cave comes the view that building a bridge should be undertaken an act of love that benefits everyone and that bridges should be maintained because not doing so is irresponsible, even hateful. The expense of bridge maintenance is both less than building a new bridge and the jobs created are permanent to the community bolstering its economy and self-image as the home of a well maintained bridge and not a run-down unsafe derelict of times past.
Privilege serves to protect privilege. In Ferguson reports indicate that promises were made and broken. The forces of privilege seem to have been numb to the effect of breaking those promises and responded to the predictable outcome with more rigidity standing on the rule of law rather than admitting responsibility and seeking an inclusive solution.
From the other perspective came that predictable outcome where once again it was proven the side of privilege cannot be trusted to comply with the simplest of concessions. The injection of violence and destruction in the face of pleas to remain peaceful only served to fuel demands for more rigidity and enforcement perpetuating the spiral of distrust.
There have been valiant efforts in Ferguson to break the cycle. These seldom make the headlines and should. The solutions lie in the field where our commonality brings us together and that is the headline. The field where past misconceptions, false stereotypes and erroneous common consciousness is heaped onto a bonfire to be burned out of our foundations freeing them to support the natural way of love. The field where we stand for peace, respect and understanding, and we celebrate that news as the path into the future.
When privilege understands its inherent responsibility to serve all mankind and those who see privilege as the problem understand their own power to create change; a shift of consciousness is inevitable. There is no one sided solution. Building a bridge requires designers, bankers, community leaders and laborers common and skilled. Remove any element and the bridge remains only an idea without form or worse; a shadow of a bridge doomed to fail when the light of truth illuminates it.
When those of us in the middle sliding back and forth realize that the status quo is shattered forever, that normal is in constant flux, and that change is the natural order of life; then we too grow our understanding, identify our commonalities outside our tribe and naturally accept the expansion of our community to include others once thought foreign and strange. Free of active suppression, the good from all our caves rises into the light of truth where we all see with common vision.
Human curiosity empties our caves one by one as those left behind wonder why the pathfinders have not returned, overcome their fear and follow into the light. Those unwilling to try eventually perish in their prisons and their fears and misconceptions die with them. Tonight Ferguson is burning, tomorrow it rebuilds as something between a fortress of fear and an inclusive community and a new normal emerges awaiting its next evolutionally push.
Learn more about your cave and the light beyond it at a Center For Spiritual Living near you or online starting at CSL.org or CSLFTL.org.