Casting people into the light

In a mesmerizing interview between Dan Rather and Carlos Santana, Santana, who was molested as a child, was asked by Rather "if" and "how" he had recovered from the trauma. Santana responded that he had indeed fully recovered because within his heart he had cast his abuser into the light of God. He said that if he had instead yielded to the temptation to cast his abuser into hell, then he himself would have joined him. “There is no future without forgiveness.”   “I am not what happened to me”

 

On-air segment of The Big Interview with Santana, January 20, 2015

https://danratherjournalist.org/interviewer/cultural-figures/carlos-santana/video-santana-interview

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you know it has been a tough year when

as a person who believes love wins

 

you find yourself wishing bad things

might be justly visited upon certain souls

 

Not proud of that

But there are voices rattling around in my soul

Saying that some people really deserve some of the hell they are creating

 

And there are voices in my soul saying that our country, our world

has been made into a kind of hell

 

and yet

and yet

and yet

 

Ah John, the beloved

Mystic

Man of passion

Child of the Spirit

 

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”

 

The light shines

Jesus lives

 

and the light cannot be defeated

and Jesus over comes death

(and a lot of other things)

 

this world is not what we have done to it

just as an abused child is not defined by what has been done to it

but is still and always a Sacred Child

 

so this world is not defined by what we have done to it

but is always, only the first incarnation

God’s expression of the Divine Self

 

the light shines

there is darkness

but the light always returns

 

ah yes

we can choose to cower in the darkness

we can sit in the gloom and believe that is all that there is

 

but the light is never overcome

it is there

in the world

in our souls

 

and we are called to choose light

to choose to walk into the light

 

Ah John, probably not the first John

but still, a student

reminds us

 

“God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness,

we lie and do not live out the truth.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,

we have fellowship with one another… “

 

We cannot live in the realm of hate and darkness

call it “hell” if you will

we cannot wish others ill

 

we cannot cry to God

to treat “them” as they deserve

for that would be to ask that we be treated as we deserve

 

we cannot ask for others to be dragged into the darkness

without be dragged into the darkness ourselves

 

I am angry right now

Angry over the hypocrisy

The lies

The neglect that has killed hundreds of throusands

The racism

The hate

The violence

 

I am angry at the President

I am angry at a hypocritical group of Senators

Who have set aside ethics, morality, even justice, for power

 

In my rage I wish them ill

and yet even as I do so

I know, I know, I know

 

That there is not future without forgiveness

To cast them into the darkness means I will be in the darkness myself

To cast them into the fire, means I will be in the fire myself

 

for we are connected

we Sacred children

and we must find our way to the light

we must believe in the light

we must walk in the light

 

there is no other way

 

so this day, even as I rage

even as the desire for retribution nibbles at my soul

I pray that Spirit might help me cast

those who so deserve darkness

into the light of God’s love

 

and that having cast them there

that I might follow