Pop 89: Lighten Up
By Madonna Hamel
In my last column, I was still undecided about my “word of the year.” A month before January, my siblings and I began considering which word we'd like to bring with us into the new year, a word representing an aspired attribute or attitude. I was toying with Grace or Acceptance but finally landed on Light. "Let there be light!" Yes, yes, how we need it!
I am thankful that I live in a place where, thanks to all this sky, even on a grey day, Light prevails; Val Marie is often the sunniest spot in the country. And my cacti can attest to that. How I made it through those dreary, rainy university days on the West Coast is beyond me. Actually, when I think of it, endless monotonous rainfall (not the dramatic storms of the prairie) is exactly the atmosphere one needs to make spending one's days and days in a library an appealing idea. (Those were the olden days of books and the Dewey decimal system and exciting random discoveries while researching and searching in the stacks.)
This year I am focussing on buoyancy and illumination, two aspects of Light. I want to "lighten up" in a climate of tension, side-taking and far too many dark hours spent fuming over presumed slights and prejudices. May I be light-hearted, may I not expect the worst but entertain the best in everyone, including myself. Just yesterday, I heard a psychologist say that "in the absence of information, people have a tendency to connect the dots in the most dark and pathological ways." I need to gather more information before my dots add up to a demon rather than another dazed bozo like myself, doing the best I can at any given moment.
Does this mean I believe that, deep down, people mean well? I don't know. But I do know that when I react by ranting and suspecting the worst in others, I neglect my better angels. It's not fun holding grudges, feeding resentments, strengthening the habit of hurt. It's heavy. Life becomes exhausting and my world the size of a postage stamp.
And while on the subject of "gathering information," here's a quote attributed to Herbert Spencer that bears repeating: "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
As grace would have it, the theme of this year's daily meditations on a favourite website is: "Salt and Light." The term is a reference to Matthew 5: 13-16: "You are the Light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives Light to everyone in the house." The idea here is not to toot your own horn or build up your reputation. It's to shine on others. Unfortunately, that quote was turned into a description of American exceptionalism. Regan first described America as a shining city on a hill - a beacon and example to the rest of us. The words have become less about responsibility, charity, and goodwill and more about the winning team.
The second part, the bit about don't hide your Light under a bushel, was meant, once again, as a call to spread warmth and heat to all our fellow men and women. To be Light is not to shine any brighter than anyone else but to help lighten someone's load, take the time to shed Light on a frightening and troubling situation before jumping to conclusions, inspire action and confidence in others, assuring them through actions not just talk, that the Light has not been conquered by the dark. At least, not yet.
I recall a grade-school teacher reassuring us that to bring Light into a room you simply need to light a candle. But how do you bring darkness into a room full of Light? Can you carry it in a box? Can you open the box, let the darkness out and let it fill in the space? No, the Light fills the box, and darkness disappears. But as I grew older I realized that people can bring darkness into a room with scowls and storm clouds over their heads. The tone and energy can suddenly go from Light to heavy. Try as you might, you cannot budge a "Debbie Downer" from their take on the world. They feed off that energy; it's how they get their "hit." Without realizing it, they are tuned to darkness - dark news, dark thoughts, dark opinions, dark predictions. The Buddhists call them hungry ghosts. Such dedication to darkness is enough to make you believe in possession.
The only person with more power in the same room is a funny person. As I get older, my respect for humorous souls grows. They can laugh at their own foibles, call out humanity's absurdness, spot the quirks and even quell the fears that might otherwise get them locked up in jail or the hospital. God Bless the silly, goofy, observant comedians in the room who refuse to take themselves too seriously and who show us that the lighter side of life can actually reside in the heart of our heaviest, self-obsessed moments.
Past Christmases, I looked forward to Carmen's flat-bed truck rolling up and down the streets, carols piped through speakers and kids dressed as a nativity tableau. Shepherds held hockey sticks as staffs, and Clyde, the family dog, played all animals. This year, three sweet children from the daycare shone their little mega-watt lights brightly upon me, delivering a plate of homemade cookies to my door. It took children to remind me that Christmas, whether through carols or cookies, is about spreading tidings of "goodness and light." And now, more than ever, that seems only right.