Plato's Cave

             Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (Jon 3:20-21)

I heard a story about a little girl who visited her grandmother. The grandmother told her not to do something. Before long, the little girl told her grandmother not to watch her. Of course, she didn’t want to be seen doing what she was not supposed to.

Today’s passage tells us that those who do evil hate the light. We may proclaim that we are in the light and love the light, but sometimes, we ask God or other people not to look as we slide our toes toward the shadows or even over the line into them. Other times, when bringing our evil into the light, we’re uncomfortable at best. Yeah, we love the light, but it’s way too bright over there.

I’m reminded of Plato’s cave allegory, where people sit with their backs to the entrance and think that the shadows they see on the cave’s walls are reality. One only becomes free when one rejects what one sees and escapes from the cave into the sunlight. We’ve all had the experience of going from inside to outside on a sunny day. Our eyes have to get used to the bright light.

I also think of C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, in which a man takes a bus tour from Hell (his residence) to the borderland of Heaven and his difficulties with how solid everything was – dangerously solid, while he seemed like a ghost in a balloon. The least damage and his outer shell would be pierced. His only hopes were to return home or learn to be more solid. It’s an allegory, too, and it’s a description of today’s passage.