The Shadowlands

Previous blogs in this series:
1-- Pits, Towers, Fields and Dancing
2-- ... Thoughts on Sheep
3-- Getting out of the Towers

I'll admit, "The Shadowlands" is an ominous title for a place that many consider pretty great. But the Shadowlands is decisively what this place is called.

We know about the Valley of the Towers, and I've talked about the Fields of Grace. The Towers, remember, house people who adhere to rules, laws, and formulas with dogmatic zeal-- they're all about the black and white. Tower dwellers are good people, and I believe they are living the best way they know how-- but their lives are defined by boundaries and they're liable to look down on others for wrong-doing. The Fields of Grace, conversely, is a place of wide open freedom and ever-present love, distinguished most ostensibly by the constant presence of Christ, i.e. Jesus, i.e. the pit-helper-outer.

So where do the Shadowlands fit in?

Well, the Shadowlands is where everyone else lives.

Here are the nice features of the Shadowlands:

Anything goes. People in the Shadowlands are highly impatient with Tower-mentality; they find that sort of thinking stringent, archaic, and frankly, obnoxious. "Oh, those Tower dwellers," the Shadowlands people might say, rolling their eyes. "They sit in their lofty perches and look down on everyone here. Let them stay locked up in their towers-- so long as they stay away from ME." Outside the many entrances into The Shadowlands are giant signs, bidding you, "Welcome! Everyone! We are only intolerant of intolerance!"

And for those people who have escaped from the Towers and are looking for acceptance-- what a WELCOME message that is.

That's why, in fact, those in the Shadowlands embrace their country's title: in the Shadowlands, there is no black and white. There are only variant shades of gray, of shadow. And as with shadows, the "lines"-- what we might consider one's sense of right and wrong-- are blurred. The shadow lines that ARE visible can easily alter with the sun's movement in the sky-- or, more literally speaking, with the rapidly varying trends in any given culture. The Shadowlands, for that reason, are very cool.

Like the Fields of Grace, the Shadowlands offer wide open spaces, and many different cultures. You've got hippies musically extolling the values of peace and harmony, reveling in freedom by enjoying "free love" and drug use. You've got the Buddhists, warmly offering you a meditation room. There are sororities and fraternities and gangs, all offering you a place to belong and find community. You've got warlords who revel in their power by raping, murdering, and killing to their hearts' content. There are the Nihilists partying with the Hedonists, and the Utilitarians paving the roads. Plenty of business CEOs lounge in their NEW towers, which-- ha!-- stand far higher than the gray buildings in the Valley of Towers. There are thieves and murderers and heroes and poets. And of course, there are plenty of every-day people: milling about, falling in love, breaking hearts, making money, losing money, searching for a purpose, for fulfillment, for meaning, and generally: getting along.

All the while, the habitants of the Shadowlands enjoy the darkened sky. Even if they leave a trail of darkness when they walk: the dim light makes that darkness invisible. There is no condemnation in these Shadowlands.

Now: do you SEE why a Tower escapee might find this kind of Shadow-dwelling appealing?

I sure do.

This is the problem with the Shadowlands though: there are swamps.

There are a LOT of hidden swamps.

We could consider the swamps as being representative of addictions, or as the icky feeling that comes when something that we THOUGHT would fulfill us leaves us feeling empty. Let me give you some examples:

The hippy that felt so restful extending peace and love to all, finds that she can't kick her coke habit. Or maybe, her boyfriend abandons her and she's not interested in free love with anyone else. Suddenly she's heart-broken and finds herself in a swamp. She's trapped; she doesn't feel free at all.

The fraternity guy is sick of being known as the crazy-drunk but can't figure out how to climb out of that identity. He feels stuck and depressed; he's in a swamp.

The warlord shuts down his human compassion and stokes the fires of his brutality, his violence, the evil within. He sinks deeper and deeper into a swamp every day. But no one can condemn him-- remember: condemnation has no place here.

The business CEOs see their faces on the cover of "Forbes," but still feel dissatisfied, they have EVERYTHING, but they have yet to feel fulfillment. They're supposed to perch in a high-rise; instead, they find themselves in a swamp.

The Nihilist does what he can to pretend his mother's death doesn't phase him, but he feels grief anyway. His philosophy is challenged when he realizes how much he longs for something to hope in. His confusion permeates; he's landed in a swamp.

Even the average girl-- her dad betrays her; the love of her life breaks up with her; she feels depressed and doesn't know why; she doesn't know her purpose in life-- she feels lonely and hurt and confused, and these are swamps.

You see, everyone in the Shadowlands is searching to fill their empty places. We all have them-- the empty places. As John Mayer sings, "Something's missing/ and I don't know how to fix it." We feel loneliness, a hunger for meaning, we long to be known and to be loved anyway. So we look to fill the empty places. And we find gods to fill them with.

The Shadowlands offer up any number of gods: "Try money!" "Try sex!" "Try love!" "Try philosophy!" "Try narcissism!" "Try work!" John Mayer sings about this in the same song I just referenced. He's got it all: "Friends, check/ money, check/ well slept, check/ opposite sex, check." Still, he concludes: "Something's missing." The first lyrics in the song imply that he's incredibly lonely, even though he's "not alone." We offer these gods our time, energy, talents, worship-- yet we still discover empty places.

The gods crack at some point. Maybe they work for a while, but ultimately, something happens that WOUNDS us, that leaves us broken, that leaves us disappointed, that leaves us hurting and once more searching for truth.

For that Shadow-dweller, the variant shades of gray start to be more frustrating than they are reassuring. What is trust-worthy? What is good? What is fulfilling? Is there ANY reliable answer? Surely not EVERYTHING can be true-- the doctrine of peace and love is at odds with the doctrine of selfish gain; the doctrine of the pursuit of pleasure is at odds with the doctrine of the common good. What on earth is TRUTH?

The Shadow-dwellers, once so disgusted with the absolutes of the Towers, find themselves similarly disenchanted with the vague offerings of the Shadowlands. And what's more: they're stuck. They're hurt. And no one seems wise enough, strong enough, or trust-worthy enough to help them or heal them.

I heard someone say once, "The gospel starts when we realize that something's wrong."

Jesus isn't NECESSARY until we realize that something is wrong.

I feel empty.
I feel dissatisfied.
I am sickened by the evil in this world.
Love let me down; the one I thought would fulfill me couldn't.
My family let me down; they couldn't keep me safe.
I feel ashamed.

Something is WRONG.

And the truest thing I know is that we need something good and strong and forgiving to save us.