A light in the darkness

Dear Neighbors:

 
There has been so much pain in the world for the last too many years. Political upheavals, wars, a global pandemic…oh that was a heartbreaker. So many losses, so many sick people, and people who were left permanently damaged by the virus. There was so much fear, shock, and anger that the very air seemed to vibrate with it.
   During that time my husband watched over me as I floundered, trying to fight off the virus. When I had a fall due to Covid vertigo and damaged my spine he lifted me in and out of bed for days, managed my pain meds, stood by the shower stall to make sure I was safe. The world outside our home was in chaos, but inside our house he was my rock. He told his painful ‘dad jokes’ to make me laugh. He encouraged me to eat when I got far too thin.
   My mother called every single day from across the world, fussing and clucking. My daughter called and texted, and dear local friends left food and flowers by the front door
   I discovered what it means, when you are struggling, to have someone lighting the way for you. Brian helped me through some of the darkest moments in my life. I saw what a difference one person could make.
   Now it is time for me to pick up that lantern to light up someone else’s path. Or several someones. Once again the world is swirling with chaos, and despair; anger, and shock is all around us. One of the best things we can do for our hearts is to hold up someone near and dear so that they feel heard and loved. When you become someone’s lantern lighting the way, you become a symbol of hope, a reminder that in an often painful world there is still goodness.
   Let us form a chain of lanterns, dear neighbors, and in so doing push back against the dark.

 “Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair, thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.

Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely." 
 
   - Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Art on the left by Charles E. Waltensperger