I Still Believe

Rainbow viewed from the window of the guest
room in my parents' home.

I was 15 years old when I read the Diary of Anne Frank for the first time. The book—the actual recorded diary of a 13-year old girl, writing about her experience while living in hiding during the time of the Holocaust—had a profound effect on me and my developing philosophy of life.

Not much older than Anne when I first read the book, I was at what people call that awkward age between childhood and adulthood during which you begin pushing your parents' buttons by challenging all you've been taught, on the road to figuring out who you are, or at least, who you want to be. I questioned everything at that age—still do—because I wanted to understand my life. Why was I here? Why were any of us here? Why did pain and suffering exist?

I recall going through a really dark period where I thought the world and most people in it were cruel, hateful, and just downright sadistic. (I suppose years of being teased and feeling as if you’re struggling to fit in will do that to a young girl.) I had read all about the horrors and indignities of the Holocaust, as well as the horrors and indignities suffered by the African slaves in America. Being black, I had experienced prejudice, although not nearly to the degree of my parents or even my older siblings. Learning about these events along with enduring the day-to-day annoyances of being teased—for being too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, too clumsy, etc., etc.—only fueled my belief that this earth was a cruel, heartless place to be. Even Sunday School lessons about a loving God who protects the meek and innocent rang empty to me as I wondered who protected the slaves or the victims of the Holocaust, or my little brother when he was sick with a brain tumor.

So fixated I was on all that was wrong with the world—wrong with my world—that I just really couldn’t see there was also beauty and goodness around me. Until I read Anne’s diary. She describes, in sometimes painful detail, her and her family's day-to-day experiences after they are forced into hiding in an attempt to escape the Nazi concentration camps.Some of her entries made me laugh—girl stuff that sounded like things I had written in my own diary. Many of the entries, knowing what became of Anne since my teacher gave away the end of the story, made me cry. One entry, infuriated me...  

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.” 

Huh?! Did she forget about being forced to leave her home? Was she not aware that people were trying to kill her and her family and in the most horrific, unspeakable manner possible, simply for being Jewish?  Was she okay with living in hiding because of people's cruelty and hatred? How could she write such a crazy thing?!

I didn’t realize it then, but that entry in Anne's journal would become/is forever etched on my heart. If Anne could see goodness in the midst of her experience, what was my excuse for not? So I started looking... for goodness.

From that moment on, I began to see goodness and beauty where before there was only darkness. A little at first, and then more, and still more. Then I began showing, or at least trying to show, others the goodness that I was seeing. And my life has been filled with joyful, once-in-a lifetime experiences that might have gone unnoticed, including friendships with some pretty amazing people from all over the world through whom I’ve learned that most people really are good at heart or want to be.

I've encountered a few challenges that threatened to send me back to seeing only darkness. And I am not indifferent to pain and suffering that occurs in the world. No one with a conscious is. Yet, it is Anne’s words I hear from deep within my spirit that restore my peace whenever I learn of some tragic event—a terrorist attack by pseudo-religious groups; a mass shooting; rape, torture or genocide committed or sanctioned by leaders of governments—or whenever I have experienced some personal trauma due to others' malevolence. For instance, the morning, 11 years ago, when I received news that my nephew whom I loved dearly had been murdered, or a few years later when I was carjacked.

“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.”

And just as surely as the sun rises each morning, the universe proves that me and Anne are right to believe so. Following every news report of some act of violence or hatred somewhere, countless other stories emerge of heroism, random acts of kindness, and demonstrations of love and compassion.

I am still astonished by the outpouring of love, compassion and kindness I experienced in the aftermath of my own brushes with violence and hatefulness. People I didn’t know reached out to help me, and in the case of my nephew’s murder, to help my family, especially the daughter he left behind.

So, in spite of everything you may be hearing on the news about what a hot mess the world is in and how we’re on the verge of disaster, know this: it's only part of the story. Goodness, beauty, and kindness are all around you—just look.

Whatever you give your attention to, grows.

Want more proof? Here's another story that confirms there are still a lot of good people in the world and when things get bad, they will and do come forward.