If it weren't for mixed motives, I'd have no motives at all.
Ann: Attorney Darrow?* **
Clarence Darrow: Clarence, Ann, Clarence. I’d like to say one attorney to another, but we have both left that life behind - myself more definitively, but you too have begun a new chapter.
I asked to come here because in my new life I am tasked with making amends by opening the eyes of those like myself who saw harm and tried to use it. Yes, we also tried to right it, but first and foremost we moved to elevate our own star in the minds of those around us so that is could make a parallel ascendance in our own firmament.
It’s not like I have been taken to woodshed to atone for my sins, more like I was shown that I had been doing the right thing for, if not the wrong reasons then, let us say, mixed motives.
Now I am a fan of mixed motives because, show me a human being, and I will show you a person with mixed motives. This business of self-abnegation is for the most part hogwash, saving your presence here, Mr. Gandhi, Dr. King, and some others I might mention.
Both of the above named individuals came to their heroism by weeping cross, by which I mean they tried other avenues to accomplish their goals and, finding those avenues inadequate, turned to radical nonviolence to which they were both sacrificed. Yet even there the motive was somewhat mixed because always they wanted to win.
And that’s not a bad thing, it drove my whole life, so I won’t turn my back on that motivation here. What matters is exactly what we want to win. Mr. Gandhi and Dr. King, both here I am pleased to say, moved heaven and earth for the betterment of their people.
In the process their own souls were refined down until the mixed motives they started with gave way to the unitary goal. of justice and equal opportunity for all. Because of that focus, their cause became a heat seeking missile, reaching ever closer to the seats of power until the target was finally reaching with their own assassination.
You may wonder what these heroes have to do with us ordinary folk, among whom I count myself, but what I wat to show you is that they started out just like you and me. They took their very human constitutions, accepting their failings and moved on in their search for justice until the search became all that moved them, all that was real to them. Many followed them and fed off of their certainty.
Others, like myself, believed in the cause of such justice and made a decent living out of furthering that cause in the courts, in the legislatures, and in halls of justice. We did not start out consumed by the cause. We used it. Not that we didn’t believe in it, we did, but ours was the classic case of mixed motives.
So the question I am asked to answer now is, did I do enough? What has God called us to do, to be? All that I can say is that we are asked to do the best we can with what we’re given – and to deal with our fears and our egos that cause us to put barriers in the ways of our service to the Lord.
It is then our job, as I see so clearly now, to tackle those barriers one by one until they are moved aside so that we can go on to the next challenge. We are not all on the elevated platform of Jesus, Gandhi and Dr. King who came to this world with lives upon lives of winnowing out their lower motives from their holy understanding until they were able to deliver the powerful changes to our world that we have witnessed, but we can all expand our understanding and commitment.
Each one of you has choices to make in your lives. You do not need to die for a cause to live for it. All you have to do is follow in the footsteps of the clear vision that came to all these great teachers. Then your life will move ahead with purpose regardless of the transitory success or lack thereof that you may accomplish in your temporary sojourn on the planet.
February 12, 2021
*Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early twentieth century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union and often represented clients whose cases were considered otherwise hopeless.
**Referred by Anita Sacco. See "Recommended Channelers" under "Resources" tab. Anita can be contacted for purchase of obtaining the recipe for her protection spray or for spiritual or past life readings at https://www.etsy.com/shop/FairyTaleEnd.