David White, MD
The Cary Joni Fukunaga film, Beasts of No Nation, tells the compelling story of a young boy, Agu, who is violently separated from his family as the nation’s raging civil war consumes his small African village. He is found and forced to join rebel forces as a child soldier. When he is later rescued, he is taken to a humanitarian facility for care. It is when Agu is sitting opposite his counselor for the first time that he touches on an insight that I believe expresses one of the deepest longings of our hearts.
The counselor encourages the withdrawn Agu with, “If you talk about it, you will feel better.”
Agu hesitates, and then with an expressionless face and staring eyes that reflect deep pools of sadness utters, “I saw terrible things…and did terrible things. So if I talk to you, it will make me sad and it will make you sad too. In this life…I just want to be happy in this life. If I tell you…you will think that…I’m some sort of beast…or devil. I am all of these things…but I also had a mother…father…brother and sister once. They loved me.”
Fully Known and Fully Loved
We each long to be known, to be loved, to matter— in spite of our episodes of brokenness, ugliness, failures, and ‘sins’ against one another. It is a hope to be known for more than how we look, for what we have done, or perhaps left undone; to be loved just because we are who we are. We each carry within us an awareness of our own inherent worth—our dignity. Throughout our lives this will be most validated and violated in the context of relationships. It is the understood value of other individuals that also lends weight to their affirmation or rejection of us. And there is no deeper pain than to be rejected, lose love, or to be deemed unworthy of love.
Seeking Artificial Love
But what if we are truly unworthy? What if people really knew us—knew what we were capable of…selfishness, jealousy, hate, cowardice…and thought us some sort of beast? It is for this reason that we are prone to stay in the shadows—remain unknown. In doing so we seek to quench our pain and loneliness with a substitute—artificial love, us presenting our best selves and then counting the “likes” offered by our “friends.”
But this love wanes and leaves us wanting until we can again display and prove our worth —you look beautiful, you are smart, you are rich, you are powerful, you are upright, you are influential, you are charismatic. While these characteristics can be valuable and desirable, they are merely circumstantial measures rather than an accurate appraisal of inherent worth. For that reason, the value of these circumstantial qualities has more to do with how the appraiser can benefit than a selfless offer of loyalty, kindness and love.
Separating Imperfections from Identity
Are our foibles then to be excused or forgotten because of our own longing for value and acceptance? Of course not. Inherent dignity does not reside with us alone but extends to each of those around us. This is the very thing that gives credence to the pain that we inflict upon one another by selfish choices, carelessness or cruelty. This assumed value in each of us is also the very thing that allows for us to reconcile broken relationships or have our shameful acts redeemed. The beauty of reconciliation is that it does not ignore but acknowledges and FORGIVES, therefore separating ones identity and value from the offense.
As a physician, I have often been granted the privilege of hearing the dark confessions of shame that plague the spirit, mind and body of individuals just like you and me; people deemed greater than you and me. I am invited with them into the shadowy places where the confessions are hidden, spoken only in whispers. It is in these most intimate moments that I am able to encourage them that this is not the definition of them. This is not the whole of who they are.
Stepping Out of the Shadows
It is when they, and we, step out of the shadows of shame—exposed, naked and known that we will experience true love. It is then in the light of truth that we can be warmed and clothed in the garments of loving forgiveness. It is when someone knows us for who we really are, draws us close and says, I love you, that we are most affirmed. It is then that we can say with Agu that “I am all of these things…but I am loved.”
Our own longing for love is also a call to love. Author Marianne Williamson identifies what it is to truly love another when she writes, “Until we have seen someone’s darkness, we don’t really know who they are. Until we have forgiven someone’s darkness, we don’t really know what love is.” There is no greater gift than to taste of this kind of love.
