Look for the Light.
In times such as these, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the day to day nightmare that surrounds and threatens to overpower us. Each morning the headlines are full of terror, and each evening the numbers are sad.
We are living in a moment in history, and if an examination of our past teaches us anything, it’s that the loudest moments of history are often filled with horror rather than happiness, despair rather than delight.
Sometimes it feels like the darkness is all that there will ever be.
And while that might feel like the truth right now, I don’t think that’s all that we have to look forward to. I have often found that it helps to have people focus on the simple saying of “I am, I am here, I am now” as a way to keep them focused in the present, so that they may keep their perspective and not get caught up in imagining a future full of fear.
But sometimes, being here and now is the last thing you need to see.
In my meditations over the past week or so, I’ve been trying to focus on a point in the future, and bring that into the present so that I might experience the gratitude and the joy of that day which I hope will be. It’s not too far in the future, and it’s not too far out of the realms of possibility.
And it helps to give me hope, in a time where that emotion seems all too fleeting.
Because sometimes, in the darkest of moments where there seems to be no answers, no peace and no sense of justice in the world, hope is the one thing that we have left to cling to, that one feeling that can take us out of the darkness, and back into a world that beckons us into peace, and laughter, and joy.
Sometimes, and especially when there seems to be no pathway forward, the beacon of hope and a belief in a better day are the very things that allow us to do the one thing that otherwise would have seemed hopeless, that one thing that made all the difference in the world.
In the midst of the darkness night, you can go on if you have hope in a beautiful dawn.
As we enter what is about to be a very dark couple of weeks, when you’re going to hear terrible things, and feel powerful emotions, I would beg of you to try to remain focused on whatever light you can.
Whether it be your faith in deity, or your belief in the goodness of humanity, I would ask you to wrap yourself so tightly in it, and hold on with everything that you have.
Because in the end, there is going to be a light.
And when that light comes, we’ll find anew the simple delights of a meal with friends, a hug and a walk. We’ll see stocked shelves in the markets, and be grateful for that which we once took for granted.
As we emerge from a period of darkness, we’ll once again find ourselves in a world very much the way it was before, yet we will see it as if for the first time, and know that it is good.
So please hold on, because the light is coming.
It’s always darkest just before dawn.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings