The light that is you…
I want so badly to fix the world.
Or help it fix itself.
I want to make life better for everyone around me but, in a lesson learned a bit later in life, also not sacrifice all of myself to do it.
And yet, why not give what I have to give, what I am able to give? Why not do what needs doing?
In fact, why not try to give even more? Or do more? Or do things to reach more people or have more impact? If I can. When I can. Because I can.
I want to do more.
This post actually started out titled “I want…” because… well… that’s how this post started out. And maybe it was just me trying to talk myself out of that mood, or fool myself out of it, depending on your mood or outlook.
But halfway through I renamed it.
Because I do believe every little thing, every decision, every choice, does resonate and ripple and impact this world.
I got to pondering this again in part because of a meme circulating recently, playing on this idea in the context of time travel…
Image description: A two panel image shows the character of Jim Halpert from The Office in front of an easel with posterboard on it. The first posterboard reads "When people travel to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small.” The second reads “Few people think they can radically change the future by doing something small in the present.”
And so I do try to radically change the present and the future with every small thing I do. With everything I do.
I think this plays into the power of a good question as an approach to life. Or good questions generally. Or of wandering as a regular practice. Or sometimes being reminded of the simple things in life.
But then I have moments like this one, right now, where and when it just doesn’t seem like enough. When I am overwhelmed by how much there is to do, how much there is to fix, how much pain there is to soothe. How many wounds there are to heal. Where I then find myself overwhelmed.
And then I just can’t.
Because I can’t fix it all. I’m not supposed to fix it all. It’s not for me to fix it all. Sometimes I can only do the small small things that I can. And it just doesn’t feel like enough. I want to do more. I need to do more.
Then comes another quote, right when you need it, a small act by a friend that you know is in fact resonating and rippling, because it is you on the receiving end now, being lifted and carried by these tiny waves that are not, in fact, all that tiny.
To wit, this meme, a quote above a painting of a long-haired figure carrying a light in their hands through a forest at night under a full moon…
The quote reads “Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” — L. R. Knost.
And so I try to be a light. And see the light in others. There is so much darkness, and yet it is against the darkness that the lights can be to most clearly seen.
And what lights that I have around me, some bright as suns, some the twinkling of stars. But together, the patterns and pictures and poetry they create… moving, swirling, dancing galaxies against a night sky.
Or sometimes just one small fierce light on a sea of darkness.
That’s how it feels sometimes, looking out at the world, at all the pain and injustice and ignorance and occasional actual evil… feeling like a single solitary light, alone in the dark.
But that’s exactly when I need to remind myself that the only reason we can see the world and its wounds so clearly is because there has never been so much light being shone on the world. A light that reveals. A light that will heal.
I spent this morning in a workshop on inclusive French language, shared about it on social media, got some questions that I got to answer. Spent the afternoon in a class studying data and power and “the fluctuating complexity of the world” (Edouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation). Planted the seed for a cashmob in support of my favourite comic shop. Made a joke. Gave one of my kids a ride to the airport. Thanked a prof. Got curious. Got tired. Took a nap. Made myself a nice meal. Watched a show. Wrote this post.
Tried to shine my light, even if only for myself.
Never a photon wasted.
