When you feel very much in the dark, when you are entirely surrounded by it, isn’t it natural to look for the light? To head toward what shines? It’s scary to move through all that darkness—anything could be there, waiting. But those little glimmers in the distance draw you forward. Gradually your eyes grow accustomed—not to the dark itself, but to finding the bits of light within it. You start to suspect you are actually in a place pricked everywhere with light, and you drag your feet less as you go forward.
And so maybe you feel numb—
but you see this and know tenderness:
you see this and know you don’t need perfection:
you see this and you know that fragile survives—thrives, even:
All these things shine. And you gather them, treasure upon treasure, and you hardly realize the strength of all that light.
Eventually, you start to wonder at what has accumulated in your heart. Some days it blazes like a fire. Some days it is less, but you rarely have to remind yourself to look for the light anymore. You turn toward it without thinking.
