The Shadowlands of Domination

e Shadowlands of Domination

by Richard Rohr & the Center for Action & Contemplation

Western civilization has failed to learn how to carry the shadow side of all things. Our success-driven culture scorns all failure, powerlessness, and any form of poverty. Yet Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount by praising “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3)! Just that should tell us how thoroughly we have missed the point of the Gospel. Instead, we developed a system involving winners and losers, which is not Jesus, who identi ed with the losers without hating the winners. What a recipe for transformation of culture! We avoid the very things that Jesus praises, and we try to project a strong, secure, successful image to ourselves and to others.

Because we did not teach our people how to carry the paschal mystery (the universal entanglement of life and death) that Jesus embodied, it is now coming back to haunt us. Many of us have little ability to carry our own shadow side, much less the shadow side of our church, group, nation, or period of history. But shadowlands are good and necessary teachers. ey are not to be avoided, denied, ed, or explained away. ey are not even to be forgiven too quickly. First, like Ezekiel the prophet, we must eat the scroll that is “lamentation, wailing, and moaning” (2:10) in our belly.

American Indian scholar George Tinker o ers a clear view of the shadow side of the Western conquest of the Americas, particularly in the United States. “Many of us have little ability to carry our own shadow side, much less the shadow side of our church, group, nation, or period of history. But shadowlands are good and necessary teachers.”

American Indians continue to su er from the e ects of conquest by european immigrants over the past ve centuries—an ongoing and pervasive sense of community-wide post-traumatic stress disorder. We live with the ongoing stigma of defeated peoples who have endured genocide, the intentional dismantling of cultural values, forced con nement on less desirable lands called “reservations,” intentionally nurtured dependency on the federal government, and conversion by missionaries who imposed a new culture on us as readily as they preached the gospel. . . .

[Indian peoples] suspect that the greed that motivated the displacement of all indigenous peoples from their lands of spiritual rootedness is the same greed that threatens the destruction of the earth and the continued oppression of so many peoples and ultimately the destruction of our White relatives. Whether it is the stories the settlers tell or the theologies they develop to interpret those stories, something seems wrong to Indian people. But not only do Indians continue to tell the stories, sing the songs, speak the prayers, and perform the ceremonies that root themselves deeply in Mother Earth; they are actually audacious enough to think that their stories and their ways of reverencing creation will some day win over our White settler relatives and transform them. Optimism and enduring patience seem to run in the life blood of Native American peoples.

May justice, followed by genuine peace, ow out of our concern for one another and all creation. [1]

[1] George E. “Tink” Tinker, American Indian Liberation: A eology of Sovereignty (Orbis Books: 2008), 42, 56. Richard Rohr, e Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder (Franciscan Media: 2020), 183, 185.

Based in Albuqueque, NM, Franciscan priest Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation—the two are inseparable.

Contemplation is a way of listening with the heart while not relying entirely on the head. Contemplation is a prayerful letting go of our sense of control and choosing to cooperate with God and God’s work in the world. Prayer without action, as Father Richard says, can promote our tendency to self-preoccupation, and without contemplation, even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good.

OUR VISION:

Transformed people working together for a more just and connected world.

Instead of accusing others on the le or the right, Jesus stood in radical solidarity with the problem itself, hardly ever o ering speci c answers to the problem. Instead, his solidarity and compassion brought healing.

In today’s religious, environmental, and political climate, our compassionate engagement is urgent and vital. When we experience the reality of our oneness with God, others, and Creation, actions of justice and healing naturally follow. If we’re working to create a more whole world, contemplation can give our actions nonviolent, loving power for the long haul.

For more infor go to: cac.org/category/daily-meditations/