Margaret Dulaney: Sunlight
I have been following closely the story of Malala, the Pakistani girl who kept an online diary of her life under a two-year Taliban rule over the valley where she lived, during which all girls were forbidden to attend school. Malala carried through with her blog from the age of eleven amid constant death threats. She told the press that she did not fear dying in the cause of enlightening people around the world about life under Taliban rule, and for the rights of Pakistani girls to be allowed access to education. In the fall of 2012, as she was on her way home from school, several members of the Taliban boarded Malala's school bus, asked for her to be identified, and shot and critically injured her. When she was brought to the local hospital, hundreds of people came to donate blood. The country of Pakistan prays and bears witness to this atrocity. And, because the world is so closely connected these days through the international press, many millions around the world share in this witness, including me. Sunlight, as the old adage goes, is the best antiseptic.
One can look at this story from many different angles: "such ignorance! Such violence!" "Such, such bravery on the part of the girl!" "How could they? The monsters!"
It's tempting to focus our empathy on the victim: "God bless this girl! Send her healing!" "Send her light!!" and to toss the perpetrators, the "monsters" in hell.
But everything inside of me tells me that light, like prayer, if properly handled, must be sent without division, without partisan ties. Light, God's light, cannot be targeted as the US military tells us that it targets the enemy. This is not a drone attack, but a prayer. And, prayer, if it is to have any effect, must affect all involved, which in the case of this story comprises the entire country of Pakistan, which includes, yes, I must admit, the ones who are gleefully taking responsibility for the attack, the angry, violent, monstrous ones.
Malala's story reminds me of our country's witness of the attacks of 9/11. I remember watching that day unfold with a stunned, confused feeling, paralyzed by the horror of the attacks, but unsure where to direct my thinking. In the ensuing weeks friends told me that they had been crying constantly, mourning for the victims and their families. I wished that I could join them in a good cathartic cry, but something was blocking the way. I felt almost dead inside.
It wasn't until two weeks after the attacks that something happened to awaken me. I stood in a parking lot of a vet's office and observed a woman attempting to get her dog out of her car. He was a big yellow lab, and given my love for canines, and the fact that I was living with two of the same color and breed, I stopped to watch her. In what seemed an unwarranted anticipation of bad behavior, the woman clicked the leash on the dog's collar and then took the end of the leash and angrily whipped the dog in the face several times before she let him step out of the car. I stood watching the scene in horror, unable to say or do a thing, as if my feet were nailed to the ground, my mouth plastered shut. The woman then passed with her dog into the Vet's door and left me standing in the parking lot, tears streaming down my face. The scene opened a flood of emotion: for the dog, for all helpless animals, for the victims of 9/11, the families that were left to mourn, the firefighters lost, their families. But it did not stop there. It couldn't. The flood seemed to take everything with it, as floods will. It loosened and lifted up everyone involved: the perpetrators of the attacks themselves, the families of these angry young men, the boiling rage around the world, the ignorant, the violent, the cruel, the unthinking, this woman. I knew I had to do something with all of that chaos, all of the people who were carried along on the waters of that flood. I vowed to pray for everyone involved in the hatred that led to the atrocity of 9/11, and for those affected by the cruel action, a number that seems to encompass the entire population of the world, and I promised to pray for the woman who was so cruel to her dog, (and for the dog himself, of course) but I knew that the light I sent must go to both of them, to protect him and to enlighten her. I couldn't target him without affecting her. This is the beauty of prayer. Like light, it cannot be divided.
I have thought of this woman at least a thousand times since that moment, and whenever I do, I pray for light to rain down on her. I have sent this woman at this point half a sun's worth of light.
One cannot go wrong while handling light. It is a boon to all. "He causes his light to shine on the good and the evil." We are taught. Of course, for light causes the light in us to shine farther, and the nefarious in us to be exposed. Like the moon we all have our dark sides, and the only way to make us lovely round shining beings is for more and more light to pour down on us. How else will the darkness be exposed, be embarrassed, and eventually be expelled?
Apparently there are prayer vigils going on all around the country of Pakistan. I pray my own small effort will aid to penetrate the darkness surrounding Malala's story just a hair more than if I did not exist. If I keep up the shining on my end, I hope after so many years to fill buckets full of light, enough to liberally share among all Pakistanis, enough to shower the innocent and the monstrous, enough to light up every corner of the world.
Visit Margaret's site at Listenwell.org