Mostly, we glimpse it from the corners of our eyes, the light peeking out from behind the detritus of our days. We don’t discuss it. We rarely consider it. But in short bursts, it breaks through. The joy we find in certain moments with the children in our lives. The grief that catches in our throats when we are missing someone essential to us. Seeing a breathtaking sunset over the ocean. Or sometimes, the quiet snow falling outside a window on a gray winter day. This is the light that lives in each of us. The light that connects us.
We don’t hold it in our conscious thoughts. Maybe we can’t without training ourselves to do so. The Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, the Dalai Lama — those who have prepared themselves — maybe they can grasp it. But the rest of us only perceive it in fits and starts.
When we lose sight of this light entirely, we are capable of hurtful and horrible actions. The massacre of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7. Using Oct. 7 as an excuse for the extermination of more than 20,000 Palestinians and forcing millions from their homes. Tying our own self-interest to Israel and sending billions of dollars to support their continuous attacks.
Demonizing people coming here from other nations to help their own families, using them as political pawns, refusing to clarify our immigration policies or provide adequate funding for those who have arrived. Denying adequate health care to our own people and instead sending that funding overseas for foreign wars. Turning a blind eye to those hurting and helpless in our own communities. We could go on and on.
But even if we can’t grasp this light, we can keep searching for it. We can notice it in the eyes of the man asking for money outside the bookstore. We can notice it peeking from the heart of a woman and her children asking in Spanish if we would buy some candy from them. We can spy it from afar in the millions pushing for their lives and those of their families in Palestine, in Congo, in Sudan.
And we can allow this light to power our actions. Helping our neighbors when we can. Giving a few dollars here and there to those in need. Volunteering our time with local organizations. Speaking out against our government’s seemingly insatiable appetite for war.
In each of these ways, we notice the light in others, in ourselves, connecting each of us to each other of us, human and non-human, plants, creatures, alive and inanimate, moving and unmoving, moved and unmoved. In each of these ways, we weave this web stronger, more resilient, more noticeable to ourselves and to one another.
Maybe we don’t need to be the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, or the Dalai Lama — maybe we just need to be our ordinary selves, taking ordinary actions, noticing that ordinary light and realizing just how extraordinary it is.
Hoping you notice that extraordinary light in this new year.
Jim Schwartz is an Oak Park resident, an educator, and a blogger at Entwining.org.