Shedding Light on the Dark Side

In a way, I was born into Eden. Mom and Dad were there from the beginning, friendly grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins hovered around us, and a dog and sister—in that order—complemented a perfectly wonderful existence. The death of Bobbo and Uncle John, however, foreshadowed a side of life not to be trusted, to be avoided. I heard talk of a place called Korea, and that Kim was not Kimberly because of that. Dad suffered an appendicitis attack that hospitalized him, Mom was hospitalized twice including Kim’s birth, and death took parishioners and unknown distant family. There was talk of a man named Jesus and his horrible crucifixion (although he apparently recovered nicely). There was good, but there was also bad. There was right, but there was also wrong. I don’t remember too many spankings, but one that stands out in my mind was for talking to a hitchhiker on the west side of the church building next to the highway. I had been told not to do that, but I did, and there were consequences. Home is about safety and security, and as the mind develops it begins to understand that the antitheses of those are danger and insecurity. Looming in the silent background was the War that had ended not that long ago, a human drama that apparently affected every being on the planet, somehow a challenge to the notion that God is love, that God is good.