Dark Bring Out Your Light – Sunday, May, 05, 1985
If given our choice, I suppose we would choose a less fearsome world. We would like a place where weeds did not invade the lawn, nor pain invade life; where best-laid plans worked out, and ignorance did not ever rule over wisdom. We’d like a world where bodies did not age, cells did not deteriorate, nor muscles tire. We’d like a world where there was enough food to feed the hungry, money to pay the bills, and creature comforts for all.
Yet we all know it is not such a world. Life is not perfect, and ironically, if it were, we’d miss one of the greatest joys of all—our need for each other. If we were self-sufficient, another’s arm would be less welcome. If we weren’t subject to fevers, we’d not appreciate the cool hand on the brow. If life met our every need before it were spoken or felt, we’d miss the sweetness of gratitude when someone recognizes our emptiness and fills it.
George Eliot asked, “What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?”1
It is in that very act—of making life less difficult-that we find love and find meaning in life.
One family, whose father was out of work, found that the refrigerator was growing empty. The parents despaired of what to feed the children in the coming days. One night, the mother came home to find the refrigerator full, the shelves stocked, and a roast in the oven, all provided by a neighbor.
“How could you know?” the mother asked her friend, swelling with new feelings of being loved and cared for. When her life had been breaking into pieces around her, someone had sensed her needs. The feeling of being loved was a far richer gift than the empty shelves had been a trial.
So, we pick our way through life being helped and helping, linked to one another through bonds of dependency that would never have been forged in a less fearsome place.
Robert Frost looked at the nighttime sky, addressed himself to a star and wondered why it was the dark that brought out the light. Stars may shine at noon, but we can never see them. It is the darker side of life that yields the light for us, too. If we drive away life’s tears, we would also banish compassion; if we forbid frailty, we forfeit the need for strength: if we demand self-sufficiency, we will never learn to need each other. It is to each other during life’s trials that we look as the traveler looks to the North Star for a place to “stay our minds on and be staid.”2
1 Richard L Evans Quote Book, Publishers Press
2 Robert Frost ,Steeple Bush, Henry Holt and Company
May 05, 1985
Broadcast Number 2,907