Twinkle

She strategically places timbers around newspaper and a pile of sticks and branches our little boys transport in a small red wagon from the woods to the clearing.  With a match she sets the kindling ablaze and settles in, furiously waving a makeshift bellows she crafts from the cardboard box recently emptied of cans of soda, or some sort of imbibing adult beverage. She’s called the President because no one does this better than she does:  I have learned everything I know about building and maintaining a campfire from her.

   

Sometimes little effort is needed to grow a tiny flame into a steady, crackling blaze. Other times painstaking patience and earnest tenderness are required for flickering sparks to catch and finally roar. 

She’s invited countless new friends to join this warm circle around her fires.  These flames have witnessed the gamut of emotions:  Raucous laughter, shameful admissions, fierce debates, bitter regret, hopeful promise and wild celebration. If they could talk they would surely tell the stories of joy and pain, fears and dreams, aches and desires both sated and starved.

Light fascinates me with its determination and deference, its positivity and promise.  Gleam, Efficacy and Trove are past year-end ponderings I’ve posted about glittering, sparkling, glorious light. My favorite message this year, by a landslide, comes from Krista Tippett’s “Becoming Wise”. She connects a plethora of fascinating interviews into a collective wisdom for our time, and maybe for all time, including the recounting of Rachel Naomi Remen’s take on “Birthday of the World”, a Jewish teaching about repairing the human condition. It’s the story of how a giant ray of light creates the world, and soon after, an accident breaks this light into countless sparks that bury themselves inside every person on the planet. It’s our responsibility as humans to uncover this hidden light in others and bring the world back together again.

I read this section of the book over and over; it is a lodestone for me.  This is a message I’m compelled to spread, and my Christmas card is the vehicle. I love that while this story’s roots are Jewish its meaning is religion agnostic. It speaks to the power we have as individuals.  It is proof, yet again, we are enough to change the world if we each do our part. I am willing to bet this light buried within us is the powerful gift, unique to each of us, that when unlocked and released fulfills our purpose.  Many of us spend a lifetime searching for this.  What if those around us chose to listen, to question, to seek to understand us, and in doing so helped us find and release our light? 

I want to say now, more than ever, this message is needed and should be heeded.  But instead I have to believe each generation’s storytellers have felt this just as strongly as I do in this moment.

   

It is hard work, striving to listen for common ground, seeking the light I know is inside every individual I encounter. It requires extraordinary self-control to tamp down my own opinions, especially when I’m cleaved to them so completely, and make room for another to unleash his equally passionate beliefs.

The light within us, like the light of the campfire, is ever-changing.  Maybe this is what makes us so complexly compelling and wonderfully sparkling as humans. At times we flicker nervously, struggling to survive in challenging conditions; other times we are a stoic, steady burn.  We can soar to spitting and crackling heights, and die down to smoldering embers.  Sometimes we’re certain even the glint is gone, only to be surprised when the wind kicks up igniting us back to life.  We all have a spark inside, this I know for sure.  The question is how do we find the courage to raise our voices, to put ourselves out there, own who we are and what we’re about, and allow those around us to help stoke that tiny flame into a brilliant blaze?  As I reflect on what I want to be different in my life in the coming year, answering that question becomes paramount, for this is where it becomes obvious we are enough.

Believe that light inside of you is bright enough. 

The light of the world breaks open,

Buries fragments within us all.

When we choose to discover,

This light in each other,

We heal the world,

We answer our call.