Expose

I remember times in my childhood when I, like most children, felt afraid of the dark. At night, lying in my bed, the room that had looked so cheerful and welcoming in the daylight mere hours before was now transformed into a shadowy, dangerous place. Anything could be lurking in that corner; anything could be lying in wait inside my closet. 

The only way to understand what was really going on in the darkness of that room was, of course, to flick on the light switch. If there had been any monsters hiding behind my chair or in my toybox, they would have been exposed, unable to hide anymore in the bright light. Then, I could have chased them off if I was feeling brave or called Mom and Dad to come defend me if I was not. Those monsters wouldn't stand a chance in the light.

Thankfully, the threatening creatures waiting to get me were always found to exist only in my fearful imagination. But now, as an adult, I know that there are real evil things lurking in the shadows of the world. There are real monsters who strive to carry out their depraved activities in the dark, behind closed doors, under the radar.

But because I was once a child, I know that the only way to begin to deal with evil is to turn on the light and expose it. 

That's exactly what the creators and supporters of the powerful new movie Sound of Freedom do for the evil of human trafficking. They shine a light on this sickening $150 billion industry in which millions of people are sold each year, a large portion of them children. The movie lays bare this painfully uncomfortable reality and bids us to look at it in hopes that the good people of the world will do something about it. 

Sometimes we might rather look away from evil and let it remain in the darkness than bring it out into the light of day to deal with it. It's heart-wrenchingly tough to acknowledge that these atrocities are happening to so many children. It's so much easier to leave the truth in the shadows than to feel that pain. But if we want a better world, we first need to look. Exposing the evil is the first step toward vanquishing it. Those monsters will always haunt us unless we turn on the light. Then we can work on chasing them away. 

Inhumanities and injustices come in all shapes and sizes, from the global to the right-in-our-own-backyard. You have the power to expose evil, to call it what it is, to speak up for those affected by it, and thereby work to repair and heal this world. It all begins with a flick of the light switch.