The bad is part of the good

Last updated on: March 16, 2023 at 7:34 am by Tricia Gates Brown

The bad is part of the good 2023-03-16T07:34:34-07:00 Tricia Gates Brown

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

{Photo by Younes Ezzentri for Scopio}

You could say I am fond of animals; I have loved many as pets and close companions. But never have I loved an animal with the ferocious, guarding affection I have for Sybil Luddington—a cat of thirteen years, soft and gray as a plume of smoke.

When my daughter Madison brought Sybil home from the rescue shelter in 2014, I thought she had picked a real lemon. “Why did you choose this cat?!” I asked, hardened as I was to the empathy Sybil elicited. Empathy is one thing, I reasoned; assuming care of a drastically high-maintenance animal is another—and not one to take lightly. Sybil was grossly obese and skittish as a devil-eyed creature who’d bellied her way through varmit-infested tunnels to reach us. After four tortured days, she hadn’t eaten or moved her bowels. Thanks to my daughter’s big heart, we were now—Dammit—caretakers to a special-needs cat who would not even properly relieve herself.

As soon as the veterinarian opened on the Monday morning following Sybil’s re-homing, Madison hauled her in. “Are you attached to this cat?” the vet asked, eyebrows raised—to which Madison replied a defiant yes. Thus she hauled Sybil home with an full IV pack, syringes for force-feeding, and several cans of rescue food. For three days, the whole family partook in administering the IV—one holding the cat, one elevating the bag, one inserting the needle into the skin of Sybil’s back. After examining her, the doctor had diagnosed Sybil with stress-induced liver illness, warning it would take days of IV-fluids and nearly two weeks of force-feeding to get her eating again.

Two. Months. Later. Two months of holding down needle-sharp claws to force syringes of smelly food into Sybil’s resistant mouth as the bulk of the mess dripped off of her tongue and onto Madison’s clothes, with occasional failures resulting in bloody scratches on forearms and teary breakdowns (in which case, I was the back-up feeder). After two months of this, over 60 whole days—the once-traumatized Sybil finally started to eat. And in the course of those trying care-taking months, Sybil and I, and Sybil and Madison, fell in love. Enshrouded in defiant, nurturing, healing, compassionate love for those many weeks, Sybil made a full recovery. She is now our gorgeous, peaceful, scampering, sweetheart of a cat who I can’t imagine living without. Since Madison resided with me only temporarily when Sybil joined the fold, and since she moved from home to a no-pets rental, Sybil became, by default, my cat.

The other day as I burrowed my face into Sybil’s dense neck fur, scratching under her chin as I do, I realized the bad experience of Sybil’s illness was integral to the good part of our deep mutual affection. I don’t mean that the good part out-did or redeemed the bad part—making it all worth it. I mean that the bad part was actually essential to the good, part of the good. The struggle of those weeks of hard caretaking, the bonding wrought in the shared struggle, and the love formed in the midst of real fears that we would lose Sybil as she shed pound after pound despite our efforts to sustain her—all of these things helped birth the appreciation and bond Madison and I now share with Sybil, and she with us. Had she been a healthy, stand-offish 4-year-old cat, I’m not sure this would have happened. We would have gone about our lives without such concentrated devotion and subsequent appreciation. I never would have delved into the animal-healing arts as I did in desperation for this cat, resorting to reiki, the prayerful laying on of hands. I have no doubt these extreme healing measures were apprehended by Sybil—a sensitive, perceptive, and big-hearted creature. I have no doubt she knew we were fighting for her with the full peace-arsenal of our souls.

These days it feels like many in the United States are fighting for our common life, our democracy. In recent years, we have seen an ex-president do things we never imagined possible for a US president, from partnering with militia groups and conspiracy theorists to try to overthrow a fair election, to fomenting a coup-attempt on January 6th, to hosting a neo-Nazi at his home. Not to mention the autocratic-leaning policies and affinities (including with dictators around the globe) that we saw in his administration.

Yet these actions have also propelled civil society to act in bold ways—politically and otherwise—to counter these efforts. We see this in the many people who assisted the investigation of the January 6th Commission, many (most?) from the ex-president’s own party. We see this in the (historically surprising) results of the 2022 midterms in which much of the country rejected election denialism. We see this in the efforts of grassroots organizations and local governments to enshrine the rights of embattled young people and women and even the environment. The administration of the 45th president stoked a restorative, ambitious backlash that has been powerful and that continues to build.

I am not proposing that any of the ex-president’s actions or intentions were good or welcomed because they stoked a positive backlash. What I am proposing here is non-dual thinking—where the balance is not found in the antithesis or the squaring off of opposing categories like good/bad, but in the introduction of a third stance: a synthesis of the otherwise opposing forces. If the bad is essential to the good, it is more complicated than simply replacing the bad with the good. Indeed, it raises questions whether good/bad-language is even helpful. As Bruce Cockburn sings in one of my favorite songs: “Sometimes the road leads to dark places; sometimes the darkness is our friend.” Sometimes the balance comes in seeing what the darkness has to teach us, or what the terrible mistakes of ourselves or others manage to illuminate.

In innumerable ways, Christian theology reflects on how the bad is essential to the good. They are summed up in the pivotal symbol of the cross as the pathway of descent that leads to freedom and life, showing us the pattern, the blueprint. Our struggles often lead to needed insights and new relationships, into deeper consciousness of Spirit, of ourselves, and of the meaning of our lives. Physical birth, which we aptly call “labor,” is another obvious metaphor for this experience. Like the metaphor of the cross, the metaphor of labor and birth is one we’d like to ignore most of the time. We want to believe we can ascend to greater and greater heights without the pain of humiliating mistakes, heart-breaking losses, or the bleary-eyed staring contests we have with ourselves as we wrestle again with our shadows.

These days we are wrestling with our collective shadow: the shadow side of America. I’m reminded that in the teachings of Jung, who elucidated the “shadow” (ie that which we cannot yet see in ourselves or our communities), the path that leads to resurrection is to delve into shadow work with open eyes, open hearts, and a sincere desire to deepen awareness; to walk boldly into the valley of the shadow in order to face what we have been too afraid to see. Whether or not we want to, it seems this is what we are doing as a country. Whether or not we like the consequences for the vulnerable—and the consequences are often abhorrent, we have together wandered into the valley of the shadow of death. What will we do about it now? What is the third way, the third stance and synthesis, that might help us ascend from this time having learned and evolved in important ways?

Contemplative

Previous Post

December 20, 2022

Trance: On shared singing and other diversions

Next Post

January 3, 2023 Letting go of effort

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Education Essay Excerpt Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz