I paid a compliment to a mother of four children: “Your children are so well behaved!”
She fired back, immediately: “In public!”
There was a side of her children that was no so desirable!
Every human person is a composition of light and darkness. We all have strong lights of empathy for others, a sense of justice and respect for others and a certain joy in just living. But then there is the darkness. We can be very selfish towards our own family members. We can be stubbornly resistant to the suggestions of others. We live too much the “my way or the highway!”
For many people it is very frightening to see themselves exactly as other people see them. The quality of being determined and always working to get things done, may be experienced as domineering and being consistently inconsiderate of the truth of other people. Some of our qualities may be downright onerous on other people.
This is where the experience of school is so crucial to the development of personality. The most important things do not happen in the classroom. It is in learning to get along with others, the weight the give and take of all human relations, to deal with the school bully and to deal with the child who have special needs is key to growing up. We are learning at a very early age, our light side and our dark side.
As we go through life and make many mistakes, hopefully it is a good time to take ownership of our dark, our black side. We may get very angry that we got a speeding ticket through a school zone, only to discover through reflection that it was our own carelessness. No one else can be blamed! This is only a small way that we are discovering our true self.
Every relationship is an encounter with our light and dark side. Many people will only deal with us on our light side. They will speak very highly of the person they know of us. But our spouse and our adult children may have a different story!
When we deal with the person of Jesus we bring our light and our dark side. There will be moments when we are surprised by our selfishness and our hardness of heart. Jesus can push our bottoms and make us very angry! But this is a healthy part of living. There may be persons we deliberately avoid because they are so wounded, but Jesus may turn us around to reach out to them in all their pain. We may not be very happy with Jesus at those moments.
As we journey through our life of faith, as we struggle with our many mistakes, may it lead to accepting our light and dark side and limiting the negative effects of our personality on others.
May your journey of self-discovery lead you to see yourself as others honestly see you.
If we actually know ourselves, we would all be sincerely humble!
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