Darned-if-you-do, Darned-if-you-don’t
Written by Rev. Dr. Scott Paczkowski
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead.”
The world is not filled with easy answers. Even knowing right from wrong can be a blurry mess. Life’s confusion was brought home to me this week when I read an article in Reuters about the cold case regarding who sold out Anne Frank. This person had Anne and other Jews captured by the Nazis and thrown into concentration camps. Because of this person, Anne Frank would die at the young age of fifteen in Bergen-Belson. While the group's conclusions that included a retired FBI agent, twenty historians, criminologists, and data specialists were “inconclusive,” the group became convinced they had found their betrayer.
The one who forced Anne Frank and others to their deaths was a fellow Jew. It would be easy to scapegoat this man straight to hell, but life is never that simple if you are willing to look a little deeper. The investigative group found a Jewish notary named Arnold Van den Bergh probably betrayed Frank. The group found he “had passed lists of such addresses to the Nazis to save his own family.”
We would all like to think we would be better than Arnold Van den Bergh and keep Anne Frank’s secret. Yet, we all love our families and say we would do anything for them. Doesn’t this mean we would sacrifice a young girl and others just to keep our family safe? Still, as people with faith in God, wouldn’t we recognize the immoral act of sending others to their death as unworthy of our family’s legacy? Some things are worse than death.
Today, reflect on life’s paradoxes. If your life has been free of most darned-if-you-do, darned-if-don’t moments, say, “Thank you, Lord!” For the rest of us, we are called to face the complicated process of divine discernment. Biblical and civil laws alone cannot address the nuances of some situations. What is required is such a deep relationship with the Holy Spirit that we can be guided through the winding paths of uncertainty and best-of-two-evils moments. We are not wise enough to thread our way through unimaginable challenges in life's most difficult circumstances. Instead, the only way to face unfair moments is to rely on the Spirit’s guidance and leading.
