Billions of us walk through the world carrying something incomprehensibly precious and tender, a heart radiating with the potential of loving sweetness, courage, strength, and inspiration. These hearts, which have never existed before and will never exist again, made of the earth, nurtured by the age and society in which we live, hold the candle of our souls.
And it is as though each of us knows that this candle within is the most precious and vulnerable part of us. Those of us who live daily with the physical, spiritual, and emotional violence of the world have learned to guard it well at the cost of letting the light shine forth. Those of us who have had gentler, safer lives tend to react as though each little jostle and confrontation threatens to blow it out, and may be too precious and fearful of seeing how resilient the candle could be.
Imagine billions of us walking through the world guarding our precious candles, eyeing each other to see if this is a person with whom we could share our light, or from whom we must shield our light. Imagine that when our hearts get jostled and we fear the harm to our candles that we bark our fears out to the person who accidentally bumped us. When we are so focused on protecting those exquisitely sensitive lights it can be hard to differentiate an intentional threat from an accident. And at times that distinction doesn’t matter—they need to back off whatever their intention.
Your light is more resilient and more profound than you can imagine. Far from being vulnerable to extinguishment, it may transform every shock and jostle into more energy, more aliveness. And still we must walk with it as though it is precious and worthy of care and attention. We must sit with the possibility that it is no one else’s responsibility to tend our light because they have their own that requires its own exquisite care.
And yet it is possible that if we each tended our own hearts, letting them grow strong, fierce, and bright, that their flames could draw to us those who would love us better, who could reflect back the beauty of our hearts.
We may be waiting for a time when it’s safe to let out the light of our hearts. A future in which there is enough freedom, enough kindness, enough resources to make it safe. We may dream of finding a bonfire burning around which gathers our true community, those with whom it is safe to finally be ourselves.
And when we walk in the world, among billions of hearts nurturing their private flames, it seems such a transformation is impossible, or so big and far in the future. We walk in towns and cities built upon decades to centuries of growth, contraction, upheaval.
Such deep change is possible, whether it is in one person’s life, a community, or a world. But it requires long term, diligent, patient effort with no guarantee of success. Such a transformation is its own tender flame that requires care and attention.
It is an illusion to imagine the work is ours alone, that only our hearts can ignite the necessary fires. Larger forces work their will. Thoughts we believed were ours alone appear in the mouths and words of strangers. In truth there are thousands of fires burning, illuminating the truth we feel, and when we reveal our own light, we feed those flames in ways we cannot imagine.
The strangest trick of it is, we need to tend our own hearts. When I tend your heart and do your work, it is for nothing. When I tend my heart and do my work, miracles unfold.
When the malice or inconsideration of others is too painful, it is right to guard your heart with firmness and kindness. When your heat feels too sore and tender, it is appropriate to withdraw and tend the hurt. Grief is necessary, but neither cynicism nor despair is practical. Rest, then return to your work.
