Blog 417 – 09.27.2016

We have a duty to use our time, our talents, our mind, and our personality to make this world a better, brighter place. I am a Game of Thrones fan and this passed weekend watched all of the last season again. Near the end of the final episode of the season you have two very strong women talking about taking back the thrones over their respective homelands. They have a lot in common. Both their fathers were failed kings who left there kingdoms worse off than they found them. One of the ladies says, “But, we are going to leave the world a better place than we found it.” That is a far more noble goal than fame, power, or riches for ourselves and our children.

When I was a boy I was taught to sing, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.” Many of us have not fanned the spark within us and sit paralyzed by fear of the seeming darkness around us. That is all the more reason for those of us who have even partially awakened to the great light in each of us to shine more brightly and show the way for our brothers and sisters. You do not have to think you are better than anyone else to shine your light. Some burn brighter that others and we rejoice in their light and refer to them as our shining stars. You may by your light set a fire burning in someone else that will eclipse your flame but the more light the better.

Elton John wrote and sang a beautiful tribute to Marilyn Monroe called, “Candle In The Wind.” Later he revised it and sang it in tribute to The English Rose, the late Princess Diana. We are each of us like a candle and candles not only give off light but warmth. For persons who believe their world is cold and dark a candle is always welcome. I quote it often because like the This Little Light song the theme song of the Christopher Hour of my boyhood left a lasting impression on me. It went: “If everyone lit just one little candle what a bright world this would be.” Romance Catholics I later learned light candles to the dead as a symbol of a prayer for them to get out of Purgatory. I do not believe in hell or purgatory but I do believe that many people alive in this world have thought themselves into a virtual hell or purgatory – a place, cold, dark, and hopeless, a place were often suicide seems an option worth considering.

All the more reason not just to shine brightly, to smile at every stranger and friend we meet but to leave our comfort zones and get out there and shine so people in the dark can see some light, some hope. Don’t get out much, pick up the phone call someone you have not spoken to in a while, shine for them.  Visit the nearest nursing home or hospital and ask the nurses if somebody could use a visit. You never have to think hard or look very far to see someone who could use a little more light in their life or warmth or both. Someday our candle will go out and our time to shine on this stage will be over. Will we leave it a brighter, warmer, better place than we found it?

“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine. Let it shine.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White