THE SHADOW KNOWS

Would that we were able to see clearly every time all the time. Would that when we make a decision, we can clearly see all the obstacles in our way and even see the outcome of that decision. Would that we never have blinders on because we would never need them because we could see clearly all that we would need to see. Would, would, would: it is only a dream, is it not?

The late Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon he once delivered at his home church, made this observation about what we see and, truly, the decisions we make by what we see and what we do not see. He said, “Everything we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.” Even when we think we are seeing clearly, we truly are not. There are things which we cannot see, for whatever reason we cannot see them, that color what we are seeing, that cast a shadow upon it.

We know that truth from experience. We have often said, after being surprised by something that we did not expect to happen because we thought we had all our bases covered, “I just didn’t see that coming.” And we did not because what we thought we saw was cast by a shadow we did not see. Some of the truth was hidden from us because we had no control over that which was hidden.

The further truth is that that fact at least allows us to forgive ourselves for being the victim of something that was out of our control when we first thought we had everything under control. We never have everything totally under control. There are just too many unseen and unforeseen shadows that come into play. And these are not random happenings, random shadows, either. It happens all the time, every day.

And sometimes, certainly more often than we are aware, we are the ones who cast those shadows upon the lives of those around us. Our shadowy presence, if you will, influences the decisions and actions of others even though they may be totally unaware of that fact. They may not see us, but we are there, somehow in some way. In the same way, others are present in our lives even though we are not aware of that presence.

The same is true on an even more personal level. Our past casts a shadow on our present. It is a part of our present because our past is a part of us. We make conscious decisions that are affected by that unconscious past and are not aware of what is happening. Would, again, that we were so aware of all this, but we are not, nor are we expected to be so aware. We are not God.

Even though these unconscious, unseen, unaware shadows do get us off the hook at times, we still need to do our very best to make sure the decisions we make and the actions we take are done with the best foresight we can give knowing all the while that there is information that is covered by a shadow. The shadow knows more than we know. Our goal is to try to know as much as the shadow knows. That will never happen being the limitations we have as human beings. But it does not mean that we do not give it our very best effort.