Living in the Light

    People are creatures of their environment and their own free will. Some are loved, cherished, admired and nurtured. Some are mistreated, angry, abandoned, and broken. Some are a kaleidoscope of both. Mixed and matched with both brilliance and brutality. 

   Some are go-getters who can't wait to help the next person they haven't even met yet. They are filled with light and a contagious zest for life. These are the people who we are drawn to. The people who we call when we need to hear sound advice. Individuals who we look at and wish we were more like. We look at how they live and wonder how we can capture that whimsical essence.
    Then there are others we meet in life. Sometimes we choose to have these people in our lives, while other times they are thrust there haphazardly. With them, they bring anger and angst. They spew words of volcanic vulgarity and leave us shell shocked. Maybe these people have long had their light extinguished. Perhaps they see each new day as just punching the clock to get to the end of the rotation. They look at others and see what they don't have. Their lives are dark and lack the depth to see past their own reflection in the mirror. And often times that reflection they see is nothing they even want to own or accept as their own.
   You have a choice of how you deal with these 'fuel throwers'.  These individuals would rather pour verbal gasoline on a fire that is not theirs to light, than look at how they could relight their own brilliance, and most times it is because they have long forgotten that they are worth of such beauty. They often respond to kindness with bitterness. Their ears are closed to encouraging words because of their own pride and their walls are so thick and slick that many have ceased trying to scale them.  Their efforts futile.
    What do we do when we encounter these people? It would be easy to retaliate.  It would be easier to retreat. It would be easiest to pretend that they don't exist. However, neither of these choices really helps us or them in the long run. If we retaliate we are no better than the "fuel thrower". We might as well light our own torch and start traipsing over our neighbors. The old adage "Two wrongs don't make a right," rings true. But oh how nice it feels sometimes to think of what we could do to get back at those who have wronged us. It is human, it is understandable, but we cannot revel in that negativity. All it does is dull the light that we have.
    Rather, we must look past our own hurt feelings and seek a deeper truth. Why have they done what they have done? What must they be dealing with to make them behave in such a manner? It is not a high and mighty attitude that I am referring to. Rather these encounters allow us to reflect on what type of light we are emitting when dealing with those around us. In all situations we must learn from them, and if we don't we have let a moment of growth pass us by. A moment to reflect on what we want and what we reject as part of our inner truth seeking. But to grow we need quiet reflection. We have to really think about this person who we may not even know very well. We have to let them live in our being for a little while, and for many that is an uncomfortable place. Allowing a  stranger who has stung us, to sit for a while in our minds. To take up precious real estate.
   We have to decide what steps we take next. Are we going to fuel the fire of frustration? Allowing it to continue to burn both us and the good around us? Or are we going to grow the garden of gossip? Perhaps we will continue to talk about the situation and pass along the negativity to others explaining how we were wronged.  All of these choices leave us taking a bad situation and learning nothing from it. We are even more drained than when we first entered the ring.
    Or we can take the steps of grace. We can feed the foreigner with the food of forgiveness. We can try not to fix or change them. This does not mean that we forget what happened or that it doesn't bother us. It doesn't mean that you even want to still have a relationship with this person. Perhaps physical words of this earthly world will never be uttered between you again.
    But we can pray for them and truly ask for God's grace that somehow in this entire situation, they will find peace. They will find a way to relight that inner brilliance of theirs. We all have it, but some of us have forgotten where it lies, or how to reignite it without first trying to extinguish others. We must be the givers of light. We must step up when it would be so much easier to step away. For if we don't, we too will continue to live in a world surrounded by more darkness than light. And if this happens we risk one day being swallowed by such darkness. I for one, would rather live in the light.