This morning, I’m sitting with the reminder of the light we all have inside of us.
Whether we know it or not… it’s there. It’s always there. And right now, to someone, somewhere… you are radiating light.
And so am I.
This is hard to wrap my head around sometimes when things don’t feel all that shiny. When I’m stressed or anxious or trying to figure new and impossible things out, when I’m saying the wrong thing or making yet another mistake, I don’t feel the warmth of that sun radiating out of me.
But it’s there.
Yesterday, I spent some time making an instructional video for my twins’ teachers. My oldest son has had hearing aids and a device the teacher wears for the last five years. Last week, the twins joined him with their own shiny new hearing aids and devices. With only a week to figure everything out before they go back to school and little time to actually connect with the teachers in the chaos of the start of the year, I admit I was a little stressed about it all.
But then, yesterday, as I began making an instructional video for their teachers, I got to witness an incredible moment of pure light. Each of my twins in turn demonstrated for the video how to use their equipment as if they’ve had it for years.
I shared a video of their demonstration with friends yesterday and one of them called me a good mom.
Instinctively, I wanted to respond: “No, these two radiate light despite my bumbling interventions. Do you know how many things I’ve done wrong as a mom?”
But I paused and eventually this quote from Thomas Merton came to me and wouldn’t let me be until I remembered the truth – that whether we know it or not, can admit it or not, we ARE light to SOMEONE.
And our light helps make it possible for others to shine.
So in case someone doesn’t tell you this today, thank you for your light.
You are loved. You are loved. You are loved.
Thomas Merton once wrote:
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .
As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
