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Beyond
Blue Snow:
Finding
the Gift of the Shadow
by Father Paul Keenan |
When I was growing up, my parents had a large painting
called "Shack in the Woods" over their
fireplace. It was by a Canadian artist named Franz
Johnston; and it depicted a lonely shack surrounded by a
huge forest of trees, deep in the shadows of a rural
Canadian winter. My parents loved the painting; but
Nana, my mother’s mother, absolutely hated it on sight
and never changed her mind about it till her dying day
at age ninety-six. The particular object of her wrath
was a patch of blue shadow that the artist had placed so
as to run from the edge of the cabin to the outermost of
the trees. It was clear to all of us that he was
depicting the deep sylvan shadows of a wintry dusk. To
Nana, it was "blue snow;" and, to her, no
artist in his right mind would ever paint blue snow!
There’s a big difference, of course, between
shadows and blue snow. When I grew up and eventually
became interested in Spirit and the inner workings of
the human person, it occurred to me that those two
interpretations of that painting marked a classic
difference in the ways we view our shadow and that this
difference captured the way in which we deal with the
murky, shady side of ourselves. Our shadow is that dark
side, the side we would not like to hang out on our
clothesline or display on a resume. Yet it is a side
that is there, one that can either help us on our life’s
journey or present a formidable obstacle. If we are
wise, we learn to embrace our shadow and see it as a
helpful aspect of ourselves, one that can lend depth and
beauty to our personality. Our first tendency, however,
is to see our shadow as "blue snow" – an
abomination, an anomaly, something that we would do
better to write off and forget about.
Growing up in the 1950’s, even in a together and
non-dysfunctional family like mine, there was scarcely
any recognition of the darker side of life, much less an
acceptance of it. The face of life was that it was
happy, that we were all together, taken care of and,
hey, what could really be wrong? If you didn’t like
something, you could complain; but you could bet that
your complaint would be met with a slap, with ridicule
or with an admonition that kids in China or Russia or
some other remote corner of the world would be happy to
have it half so good. If you cried, you were a baby. If
you got mad, you were a problem. If you acted out, you
were punished. Your negative feelings were "blue
snow" -- how could you even think of putting
them out there for people to see? When my mother’s
second pregnancy ended in a stillborn baby boy, there
was absolutely no mention of it. It was nearly twenty
years later, when my parents were entertaining a
colleague of my father’s from the university, that a
pre-dinner daiquiri mysteriously unleashed a flood of
memories as my mother sobbed out the story of her
long-lost infant son.
What is this shadow, this murky and unpurged side of
us, the "blue snow" we try so assiduously to
avoid knowing and to keep others from knowing as well?
We call it by many names -- interesting, isn’t it, how
many of them end in the suffix "-pression.
--Depression, Oppression, Repression, Suppression. That
suffix comes from Latin roots meaning "to
press." The image is that of our taking something
and pressing it down, pushing it in, keeping it from …
"ex-pression," which means
"pushing out." What happens is that we take
something that to us seems scary, unappealing or
unpleasant and try to assure ourselves that under no
circumstances will we hold it up for personal reflection
or show it to others. We believe that it is too
frightening or too shameful to acknowledge or to have
acknowledged by those around us. What if others found
out?
The very name "shadow" should tell us
something about how to deal with these scary and
hard-to-reveal phenomena. Once we accept the fact that
what we are hiding really is a shadow and not merely
"blue snow" that shouldn’t be there, several
healing realizations can surface.
1. A shadow is a shadow of something else. What
we are experiencing flowing up out of the surface of our
awareness is not an isolated something in and of itself.
It is a story, a voice in the song of Life; and that
song is about some fact, habit or feature of our lives.
What we are so afraid of when we encounter our shadow
is that it could be something that, if discovered, would
simply destroy us. People have told me that they are
amazed at how candid I am, in my writing, about the
fears, failures and foibles that have been part of my
personal history. Over the years, I have learned that
every one of those things that I would hide, has a story
to tell, a story that is a very important part of the
moral of the story of my life. For example, when someone
asks me, "How did you get into radio?" part of
the story involves being forced to acknowledge a
physical illness and a sense of personal inadequacy both
of which had to be faced and healed. When I tell the
story (you’ll find parts of it in my first book, Good
News for Bad Days), I am actually allowing those
sub-plots to find their voices, to bestow unique
tonalities to the overall story of my life. Like the
shadows in my parents’ painting, each of the dark
moments contributes something positive to the painting
or the song of my life.
2. A shadow becomes visible only when it comes
into the Light. The shadow is a sign of the Light,
though it appears to be a sign of the darkness.
This is so important to realize. A shadow can be seen
only because Light is shining. When we feel
uncomfortable about some aspect of ourselves or about
some deed or history of deeds in our life story, it is
good to remember that what is happening is that we are
beginning to come into the Light of Truth. That Truth is
the truth about ourselves because of who we are.
Admitting or acknowledging the evil aspect or unbecoming
feature brings it into the Light. That is uncomfortable
at first; and as we allow this to occur, we may find
ourselves being overcome by a feeling of helplessness or
powerlessness to conquer the shadow. Remember this --
the Light into which you are coming is the Light of
Truth. By nature, Truth is gentle and purifying; it
builds you up, and does not take you down. The light you
are afraid of coming into is the light of ridicule and
condemnation, but that is a false light that, in the
end, collapses into nothingness. The Light of Being, the
Light of Truth, is very gentle with its own, and you are
one of its own. That you are a child of God, made in the
image of Being itself, is the only truth about you that
ultimately matters. The Truth that is God transforms the
shadow by lighting it and making it beautiful, just as
the light of the sun or the moon transforms the shadow
of a tree, making it a part of the overall beauty of the
forest. When I finally sought medical treatment for what
turned out to be my thyroid condition many years ago, I
remember collapsing on the hospital bed in relief that I
could finally give up the pretense of being well. In a
short time, the doctors told me I was near death; and I
recall surrendering once again in complete powerlessness
over my condition, telling God, "Do whatever you
want with me." At that moment, I experienced a
profound inner peace, which, without words, told me,
"It’s going to be all right." It was that
Inner Light that carried me through to recovery over the
next several weeks. Though some of my doctors tried to
make me feel shame for having waited so long to seek
help, their attempted humiliation of me was nothing in
contrast with the gentleness of the Light that told me
to relax and let it find the appropriate place for my
illness in my life story overall.
3. There are times when it is appropriate to be
ashamed, and inappropriate not to be. What matters is
that the shadow has a gift to give us, and that God’s
Light can help us to find that gift.
When we truly have done something foolish or wrong,
when we have hurt others and ourselves through our
actions, it is appropriate for us to feel shame. It is
never appropriate for us to stay mired in shame. The
gift of the shadow is that it can turn shame into
beauty, wisdom, depth, direction and graciousness, that
it can give us a gift. Said more accurately, it is not
the shadow by itself that so gifts us; rather, it is the
shadow illumined by the Light of God. Those of us in
helping professions can recall, perhaps, how shallow
many of us were when we so eagerly came bounding out of
our years of training, ready to take on the world. How
little we knew back then! When we have lived a little,
failed a little, lost a little, come up against some
barriers, made some mistakes, even done some things that
were downright wrong -- we approach our work so very
differently. What is it that is different about us? Is
it a trace of compassion? Is it a new level of caring?
However we describe it, we are different -- perhaps more
humble, both in the sense that we are more modest in our
claims, and in the sense that we know more intimately
the Light that guides us and holds our hand as we help
others to heal.
When I was studying graduate theology, one of my
professors told us about a dream he had experienced. In
that dream, he was being chased by a dark man, who
eventually put him in danger of death. At the last
minute, the man tossed a backpack to my professor, and
disappeared. After awakening from the dream, the
professor told us, he experienced an insight that freed
him from something that had been burdening him for a
long time.
The shadow side of our lives is friendly like that.
It is a sign that at the deepest level of reality there
is Light, not darkness; Gentleness, not condemnation;
Purpose, not chaos and despair. It all begins when we
acknowledge the murky side of life, not as anomalous
"Blue Snow," but as shadow, the darkness that
proves the existence of Light.
© Copyright 2002 Father Paul Keenan. All Rights Reserved.
Father Paul Keenan: Popular speaker, author and
radio co-host of WABC Radio’s "Religion on the
Line," Father Paul Keenan likes to talk and write
about the issues that matter to people. Widely
experienced as a national and local television and
radio news commentator, he is the author of Good
News for Bad Days, Stages of the Soul and Heartstorming.
As Director of Radio Ministry of the Archdiocese
of New York, he supervises, produces and writes for
various radio and television programs. In addition, he
serves as a parish priest in New York City.
Father Paul Keenan, came to his
now-ten-year-old career in New York broadcasting after
having been a college teacher and administrator and a
parish priest for many years. He hails from Kansas City,
where he graduated from Rockhurst University and
completed an M.A. in Moral and Pastoral Theology at
Saint Louis University. He was ordained to the
priesthood in 1977, and went on to complete an M.A. in
Philosophy at Fordham University.
Father Paul is also known for
his work on the Web. He hosts his own website (www.fatherpaul.com)
and contributes regular articles to various other sites.
He is a regular columnist for the monthly newspaper,
"Catholic New York." His other talents and
interests include reading, cooking and being humble
servant to his three cats, Teddy, Lionel and Midnight.
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