DESCENDING UPWARD
Color has an interesting property. It’s linear, in that it changes as the frequency increases – starting with red, moving through the spectrum, and ending with violet. Red and violet are on opposite ends of the spectrum, with red in the 400-484 THz range and violet in the 668-789 THz range. Linearly speaking, there’s no direct route from red to violet. The only way there would be to pass through the intervening colors by way of increased frequency. On the other hand, it’s also circular. With that being the case, violet light conjoins with red and is, in fact, a product of combining red and blue. Not only is there a direct route from red to violet, they blend into each other.
As time goes by, I find love operates in much the same way. Love and hate seem like opposites, and in a sense it's true. Functionally, they’re opposites in the same way light is linear; however, indifference is the ontological opposite of both love and hate. Hate has a far more nuanced relationship with love than mere opposition. In fact, unrecognizable though it may be, it is in fact love - twisted, desecrated love. The two may be on the opposite ends of the spectrum behaviorally, but in their essence, they’re intimate as lovers.
I won’t get into it, but the terrible pain a central figure in my life continues to heap upon me has evoked a terrible hate inside me. It scares me. I honestly didn’t think I was capable of such hate. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, as Jung said. In the past, when hate would surface, I responded with resistance – attempting to ascend up the spectrum. Recently the cruelty became so complete I couldn’t control it. Fortunately, though I couldn’t control it, I could still watch it. And watch it I did.
I was immediately reminded of how Christ encouraged me to welcome, heal, and love my demons instead of resisting and attacking them several years ago, and I allowed myself to descend into the depth of this hate. What I discovered was astonishing. Somehow love broke through the overwhelming pain. It transformed it before my very eyes. And the love that broke through did so with an intensity that matched the hate it subsumed. The darkness morphed into light so suddenly and completely, I could do nothing but rest in stunned disbelief.
In the aftermath, I finally realized so many vices we carry with us are not things themselves, but shadows of the things they point to. Like the shadow themselves, they need to be healed and integrated. If one probes anything deeply enough, they discover that underneath all the distorted pain and baggage that dominates our experience, there is literally nothing but joy and love.
Should we be surprised, when our deepest selves are God? Though we cannot see it, encased in chrysalis, a butterfly longs to get out – a beauty that’s always been there, hiding as a bright secret within the anguish itself. It welled up within me apart from my will, reason, or expectation and resides within me free of such constraints. We cannot seek to use this love. It seeks to use us. It cannot be possessed, but possesses. We belong to it because it's what we are. When we commit ourselves fully to this truth, consummated in waves of deepening surrender over time, it bleeds as red bleeds into violet, and outward from us like watercolor on parchment. Paint us Father, paint us on the world.