The conscience crossroads is a battleground you can win
What would you do — if a child you had legally adopted so far as you knew — showed an uncanny resemblance to a photo on a missing child card that arrived in your mail? This is the central theme in the novel “Look Again” — the upcoming reading group selection at our local library. This woman — a single mother — fights with herself over pursuing the possible connection — or tossing the card.
She knows she can’t just pretend she didn’t see it. As a respected journalist she is committed to seeking truth in her stories. Plus, her own conscience is hounding her. In an argument with her father who thinks you can just “trade these kids out” — they could be anybody so it’s unlikely her son is the missing kidnapped child — she finds defining words, “How can I lose something that was never mine?”
She’s crazy about this little 3-year-old boy. She’s been going on the assumption he is hers. This is her crossroads. If he’s not rightfully hers — no matter her personal investment — she has to return him to his biological parents. The book holds predictability and surprise as the story plays out.
Conscience is both best friend and ferocious rival. It’s a lovely thing to listen to when it’s speaking what I want to hear. Or a voice I wish I could shut down when I don’t like what it’s saying. The prophet Isaiah warned the Hebrew people of the Bible against putting “bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” Sure, this mom in the book could have lied to herself for a lifetime. Compiled a long list of reasons not to pursue investigating her adopted son as a missing person’s child.
She could have caved to The Big Con. The one that says, “You can have it your way if you play it just right, it won’t hurt anybody, they won’t even know or if anyone gets hurt they’ll get over it.” I’ve fallen in that crevasse — and it’s a steep drop.
The conscience crossroads is a battleground. Thank God it’s there. Because when we win — and victory leads to right actions and decisions — forget the crevasse. We’ve gained the mountain top.