“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in. ” Whatever else Leonard Cohen had in mind when he coined that phrase, it says something about how wisdom, compassion, and morality seep into our lives.
In our culture there are some whose lives, for whatever reason, are considered inferior and deemed not worthwhile. Moreover we are convinced that we may on occasion even snuff out the heartbeat of these persons. Euthanasia, abortion, and various kinds of mercy killing are being promoted precisely in the name of compassion, open-mindedness, and human dignity.
Imagine how soulless would be a world within which only the strong, the young, the healthy, the physically attractive, the intellectually bright, and the achievers have a place! Imagine how soulless would be a world that views the handicapped, the unborn fetus, the physically paralyzed, and the dying as having nothing to offer! Such a world would be able to recognize neither the birth nor the death of Jesus because, in both of these, compassion, morality, and wisdom seep in precisely through what is helpless and marginalized. Our present culture is drawing ever nearer this soullessness.
A world that sincerely believes that killing someone, anyone – be it Tracy Latimer, an unborn fetus, or a criminal on death row – can be an act that enhances human dignity has let its compassion be coopted and commandeered by vested interests. We will never admit this of course, but it is true. The reason we do not see value in the lives of the severely handicapped, the terminally ill, those plagued by Alzheimer’s disease, and many of the other poor in the world is that these people precisely stand in the way of someone’s comfort, someone’s efficiency, someone’s rationality, someone’s supposed enlightenment, and someone’s limited compassion.
Better they should die than that this should be disturbed! In both the world and the church today we are becoming blind to one of the deepest truths that Jesus taught us in the crucifixion, namely, that what looks useless and meaningless has the deeper value. Inferiority builds soul.
Those who fall through the cracks of the culture are indeed the crack where the light gets in. If our world has any real soul left, if indeed we still even understand the words wisdom, compassion, and morality, then it is because someone who has no power in the culture, someone who has been marginalized and rejected, has shared a gift with us. [Excerpt from Ron Rolheiser’s “The Rejected One As Cornerstone,” November 1998]