Fundamentalism In Our Lives
Henry today. Rigid fundamentalists have a dark shadow, as we all do, but they are generally not willing to accept that they have a problem. It feels so nice and good to be right. If I am rigidly convinced that I have a lock on the truth, then every one who disagrees with me must be wrong and likely is evil.
All fundamentalists are basically the same, no matter their religion. I remember standing with what we would describe as a fine Christian woman in front of a church. Somebody said something about church and the Roman Catholic Church. In a big aggressive voice she said something that I had never heard her say before or expected to hear her say. She blurted out: “I hate Catholics.”
What a bizarre unchristian statement from a woman who prides herself on her church attendance in a very fundamentalist conservative church, and in her Christian attitudes to life. Here was a bit of her dark shadow coming out. We can see the same thing in a more extreme form with fundamentalists on all sides on the Middle East conflict, Arab, Jewish and Christian. Everyone is absolutely convinced that they are right and that the other side is totally evil. Unfortunately, this is not confined to political radicals, but happens in our daily lives all the time.
What this means is that the more right we are, the harder we have to work at repressing our shadow qualities. Qualities which are repressed do not disappear - they just disappear from view. We have swept them under the carpet, confined them to the basement of our soul, or tucked them behind the door.
What happens, of course, is that we have so many things tucked under the carpet that we start to trip over the bump. That is, the material we have repressed starts to return to haunt us. It can come out in problems with our spouse, with endless conflicts with our children, extended family, job, profession etc.
What we have to, often most painfully, is come to admit that we are not totally right about anything. Our rigidity is primarily a defense against our fears and uncertainty. Much better to face them than blast their negative consequences out on others.