There are commonalities among all persons, despite the fact we are perpetually at each other’s throats, and despite our diverse upbringings, during which we are forced to swallow cultural, political, and religious lies from Day 1.

I have nothing against culture, politics, or religion. I am talking about the “twisting” of these essential components of any society. I am talking about the propagation of lies throughout the history of the world, and the flip side of that, which is the suppression of truth.

Not in any systematic way over the course of centuries (I am no Dan Brown School of Perpetual Global Conspiracy disciple), but in a random, episodic fashion, whereby truth is defined according to the whim of the despot of the day.

I’m not going out on a limb here saying your average Joe and Mary (i.e., the vast majority of the world’s population) are fodder for those powerful men who govern worldly things. You have, of course, your dictators and ayatollahs, who oppress and dominate and exploit their people. But you also have your Special Interest Dictators of the Western democracies, who manipulate, lie, and cheat to obtain their ends.

And there is the trickle-down effect, evident in the person of overbearing boss, abusive husband, institutional pedophile, neighborhood bully, and others who drastically diminish and often irreparably damage the quality of life of so many ordinary persons.

But human beings are all the same in that we all want to be happy, and we want to feel that our lives have meaning. Some find a distorted type of happiness and meaning through POWER at the expense of others. But most persons would like to find happiness and meaning through relationship with others and doing good (nurturing, helping, healing, building, bridging, creating, teaching, encouraging).

Unfortunately, the former have a disproportionate influence on the quality of life of the latter. And the means by which they achieve their own toxic brand of happiness and meaning inevitably lead to war, genocide, terror, economic disaster, and personal tragedy.

Nonetheless, Average Joe’s can and do make a difference within the most trying of circumstances. We can point to generations of Christian martyrs and missionaries throughout the centuries, but every culture, political system, and religion has produced heroic men, women, and children who have shown the rest of us that what is good, beautiful, and true cannot and must not be suppressed.

These Light Bearers impart to us a precious gift: the understanding that we need not define ourselves as victims or captives or even imitators of monsters (for those who would choose the dark path as the way out of their captivity).

In fact, there is no reason we cannot be Light Bearers ourselves, for there is something (or Someone) much greater at work in each of us than the world and its Hollow Men.

The poet, Miguel Hernandez, while imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War, wrote, Ata duro a ese hombre: no le atarás el alma.  (Bind that man up hard: you shall not bind his soul.)

Which begs the question, how do you bind another person’s soul? You would need that person’s permission, it would seem.

And here is the marvelous irony: those who seek to dominate others have by their own series of choices imprisoned themselves. No one has done it to them. They have simply allowed their Weakness and Corruption to bind up and lock away their souls.

Think of it. It really is quite remarkable how it all works out, this strange order and balance of things. How is such a man (or woman) capable of having a meaningful relationship with another person? And how can he (or she) have eyes that are open to what the Light Bearers reveal, or ears to hear their Message of Freedom, when they are hell bent on trying to eradicate them?

What is it that matters most to us?

I was driving to work this morning. I am an utter, shameful fool to complain of my daily commute to work. I understand that, but when I am crawling in bumper to bumper traffic I am not at my best.

Today I was making good time, but up ahead there they were, five or six cars submissively lined up behind a stopped school bus with red lights a-flashing. I took my place behind them, resenting the yellow slug of a vehicle with its extended rickety Stop sign, and thinking, “Can I get to work once, just once, without some freakin’ delay?”

Then I saw a little boy, maybe 6 years old, running hard toward the bus, little white legs in  shorts pumping away, backpack bouncing on his little back. The bus wasn’t going to leave without him, but he was running hard anyway, determined and filled with purpose.

I felt ashamed of myself, and was flooded with memories of my own children as little students bearing impossibly large backpacks on their way to school. When the boy disappeared into the bus I turned and saw his mother. A young woman wearing checkered pajama pants and a white t-shirt, staring intently at the bus as it laboriously pulled away.

What matters to you?

Family? Meaningful relationships with other persons? Doing what is good?

I recently watched the film, The Stoning of Soraya M, a true story based on the 1994 book by the French-Iranian journalist, Freidoune Sahebjam, both of which have been banned by the Iranian government.

An Iranian woman living in a remote village (not the first, nor the last, I fear) was stoned to death because she refused to grant her husband a divorce, which would have left her and her daughters destitute. Knowing it would be impossible for Soraya to prove her innocence (as per Sharia law), her abusive husband accused her of infidelity, having already threatened and recruited a simpleton into serving as second witness. Under Sharia law, two witnesses equaled death sentence, freeing the husband to marry a younger woman.

Soraya’s aunt, Zahra (a devout Muslim and Light Bearer), managed to tell the story of what happened to her niece to the journalist, who was passing through the village on his way to the border. Both Zahra and Sahebjam risked their lives to bring Soraya’s story to the world, knowing those who live in darkness fear all light.

Absurdity and darkness go hand in hand with reason and light. The works of those with locked-away souls, as perverse and gruesome as they can be, help us to see life and the world more clearly. They force us to look at where exactly we stand. What side of the chalk line.

They prompt us to ask –

If I deny my family, if I dishonor the sanctity of life-affirming relationships, if I reject what is good, what can possibly remain of me?

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men…

from The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot