Black and White

You know when he comes in the room.  The lighting completely changes, the shadows deepen, and somehow, the very air of the seems oppressive.  Ominous music plays from nowhere and then you see him.  Black hat, black clothing, and boots.  There are always boots.  All of these things point to him, but you could get rid of all of that and still know him by the eyes.  The eyes say it all.  Squinty.  Shifty.  Dark.   There's no doubt, once you see the eyes.

He is the bad guy.

Years ago, my daughter and I were watching some random kids movie.  If you have kids, you know these movies.  Terrible script.  Bad writing.  Awful acting.  Kid’s love them.  You watch them because your kid loves them.

“Dad, is that the bad man,” my daughter asks in all her innocence. 

“Yes honey, that’s the bad guy,” I answer somewhat offhandedly.  

But wait.  I stopped there.  I realized that perhaps I’ve just taught my beloved child a terrible lesson.

If you’ve spent any time knocking around this world, you learn very quickly that the “bad man” is rarely accompanied by menacing organ music.  The stage lighting doesn’t suddenly change and there is no chorus of gasps when they enter the room.

No, I can tell you as a Pastor, some downright evil people, people so evil that it affects you.  Like an oil slick on the surface of water, you can’t help but get some on you when you touch it.  

Some of the worst people I’ve ever dealt with have had a smile on their face as they stab you in the back.  I’ve seen people lie with so much sincerity that you’re left breathless when they turn on you.  I’ve watched folks who everyone placed on a pedestal turn around and hurt others in the most brutal ways.

It’s the politician who kisses the baby even though he just signed a bill that will leave the baby’s father out of work, and he knows it.  It’s the husband who abuses his family in the most heinous ways, but smiles at church and plays the good Christian.  It’s the teacher that everyone likes who turns out to be molesting kids.  It’s the person at work who schemes and lies for their own benefit, climbing the ladder over the bodies of their coworkers.  It’s the person who brings drama and bile into the lives of everyone she touches, as she plays one person off against another.  

I wish I could continue to tell my daughter that the world is divided nicely and neatly in to categories of good and bad, with the good guys always wearing white hats and the bad guys always wearing black ones.  I wish I could tell her that it was easy to avoid the evil ones.

But no, the truth isn’t in the black and white, but in the grays.

Even an oil spill can be pretty.  Have you ever seen the rainbow of colors on the surface of an oil slick?  Beautiful colors that can hide an appalling evil.

I can’t protect my daughter from the evil people in this world, but I can be honest with her that sometimes bad guys wear masks so good you can’t even tell they are masks. And sometimes the good guy comes out of nowhere and surprises you.

And sometimes, that oil slick of evil is going to stick to you, no matter how hard you try to wash it off.

Life isn’t as easy as a kid’s movie.

I wish that she never would have to learn that lesson.