There is beauty in innocence. There is also sheer vulnerability within the realms of whatever tries to change or taint such level of purity.
There can be no guarantee that when you turn away or leave innocence with the world, that the innocence be safe from exposure to what would or could be the turning point of light to darkness.
You can only do so much. The rest must lie on faith and hope for one’s own inner strength to be a conqueror of what to stand and fight against.
Not all of us are a David, strongly knowing that the real armor need not be heavily worn, but strongly held up within.
The longer I take a look at all that happens within and around this world, the more I understand our self doubts to be the case of our own defeats.
That saying, “curiosity kills the cat”, must be guarded by the constant reminder to think on what is excellent and praiseworthy. We must listen to Jiminy Cricket’s forewarns of where our desires may lead us.
The drawback to the innocence of any Pinocchio is, however, when only innocence is known, having been protected from what else is out there, the anticipation of any oncoming darkness and its truth cannot be foreseen.
When light is what you know, darkness is the unknown- unbelieved, unwanted to exist.
From birth, your senses have been freed to gain knowledge of the world. So, you listen, look, smell, taste, and feel even before you arrived to comprehend you possess such sensory skills.
To look down at a child and see their eyes wander about the room; see them lift their heads up and look toward a noise they hear; to watch them pinch the corners of their blanket; bite or chew on their rattle or crinkly toy; to see their enjoyment to be tasting something past milk- we were each a child once who picked up early on how to begin to make sense of this world.
The simplicity of life lifts to higher levels of complexity as our brain develops. Our perception, our meanings, grow expansively the more we feed our understanding.
The more our senses pick up, the more difficult to avoid what we then hope to have never heard, seen, smelled, tasted, or felt.
I was fortunate to be in Mock Trial, a small group of students in a class selected to represent one’s school to compete in simulated court cases.
What I felt somewhat adjunct to our government class, primarily due to having the same teacher for both, here is where I first truly immersed myself in true love of Socratic seminars, pushing one another to discuss difficult subject matters, asking different minds, for instance, what would be seen as justified or unquestionably an act of injustice.
Based on the vantage point, to advocate for opposing minds, can an act be in purest sense ever rendered as to whether or not injustice took place?
Starting out in Mock Trial my first year made me think, for sure, I could become the attorney Papa had always wished for me to become.
My desire to become what I was sought to do, having no way of knowing how to get there, but would, led me to partaking in Mock Trial, a class I shall never regret to have been blessedly a part of within the years I was given.
In class, I loved listening to my peers’ notions on every topic from books we read (mainly because I recalled having read any to the finish) to hypothetical questions that would arise as, “Would you take another life to save another?”
I still recall to this day how, who would become our valedictorian, mentioned she would not.
In listening, I couldn’t help, but to ask, “Even to save your own mother?”
The pause- and then, her answer, “No. I would not.”
(While I found my way to walk with our valedictorian and sit with her amongst the All Student Body representatives on that podium before our high school graduating class, her admirable academic discipline and strong stance of self throughout our high school years undoubtedly made her the most deserving amongst us all.)
In such instances, to say, “I don’t believe you” would only serve emotion and not facts.
This is when you respectfully accept an answer was given whether you liked it, agreed with it, or minutely understood such conviction.
I hadn’t realized it then, but by the time I was nearly ending my senior year, I was becoming more aware of how there are just those who will never see it your way.
Your justice is someone else’s injustice.
Even though I thought I knew good versus evil, I hadn’t realized how little I knew of how much evil would be seen justified from another’s eyes whilst what I would see as good to be viewed just as evil.
One of our opportunities given for being in Mock Trial was to have access to visit the county jail. I had gone with a few friends to lunch and missed this opportunity upon my return- somehow feeling it was meant to be even to today.
The one part I had not missed, but perhaps became the pinnacle of my choice to surrender my thoughts of ever becoming an attorney, was to sit inside a courtroom to listen in to a real trial case.
That day, one of several alleged perpetrators was on the stand, being cross examined by the prosecution team regarding his involvement with a woman, the allegedly found victim, who escaped a horrific attack.
Having been briefed by my teacher in the hallway as to what case was being tried in the awaiting courtroom already in session, I would quickly and quietly take my seat inside the corridors.
I still remember, unknown to me at that moment I had walked in as to who was on the stand, meeting eye contact with the alleged perpetrator before he returned his attention to the prosecutor who had already begun asking him questions.
As I listened to the cross examination, the evidence presented before the alleged perpetrator on the stand were what I knew immediately had put my senses to a test of temperance.
I remained motionless and stoic to my recollection. I knew and regarded my part to just sit and listen.
When the alleged perpetrator was asked if he recalled to using any of the evidence presented on the alleged victim, his answer, “No”, was cool and collect and unchanged as, one at a time, each item was being held up for him to see.
I walked out of there knowing I had made up my mind to deny all that I had heard to have any truth. At that moment, a reminiscence of what it was like to only know and understand pure innocence put a pin through my heart.
If such injustice were to be true, how could anyone ever give ear in hopes to find such acts as justified?
A week later, my government and Mock Trial teacher curiously asked me what I thought the verdict of the man on the stand that one morning visit in the courthouse had been as I could tell in his face such had already been publicly announced.
My answer? “Innocent.”
The verdict? “Guilty,” my teacher uttered right into my eyes.
I looked away. A man would be facing a long sentence- someone who had looked me right in the eyes before I heard all the many horrific things he had supposedly done.
Would there ever be justice to what I heard?
That student who did a report on both Mother Teresa and Al Capone, oddly admiring both, have read, listened, watched, seen a few more about people in this world since then.
The heart, the mind, the body, and the spirit- all under a lifetime of training to understand eye for eye, tooth for tooth under the same belief to love thy neighbor.
Innocence was not meant to stay innocent in able to escape ignorance. And yet, it is in innocence we swim in the shallows with ignorance to find comfort in bliss.
While I knew I was driven under the pursuit for greater knowledge, as I sat and listened to utter darkness, to be in pure innocence of what I was hearing in that courtroom was all I ached for at that moment, beach-combing instead on the sandy shore while at play in purest sense of peace.
I could escape none of what I had heard.
It was no surprise to me that I found myself walking into our home to sit down with Papa alone and find the courage to tell him I would not become an attorney, but rather a teacher before my senior year came to an end.
To imprison the innocent or exonerate the guilty was not either to be of my part in doing.
While the path to arrive at full understanding in pursuit of greater knowledge taketh away any chance of unscathed innocence, the payoff is losing any room for ignorance.
Knowledge gathered have helped me to understand there are gradients between good and the other to counter which taketh away any chance of good.
Even a speck of light, however, taketh away pure darkness.
Though at times humanly opinionated, I have long let go of believing to have any power to judge.
The power within is given in each of us to shine our light upon others. It is in this act that light giveth does not only spread, but grow exponentially in others.
It is in this act that there is hope.
Where light shines, darkness will be given only power of absence.
While there can be no escape from darkness to be seen, undeniably, light cannot ever be overcome.
