Run Toward The Light

I wrote this a year ago as a reminder and inner navigation tool for myself as we entered a period of unprecedented political instability and uncertainty. It's easy to get lost nowadays in the fog and darkness of our chaotic times. But there is a light.

Run toward the light

Run toward the light. Run toward the hope. Run toward the beauty.

Systems and ideologies can crush our bones, they can take our livelihoods, they can threaten our security, but...

They cannot own our souls.

We are stewards of our Self and the inner flame that gives us life, faith in humanity, and purpose in the chaos.

They cannot enter into this inner sanctum without our consent.

Politicians can stoke our anger. Media can opine about current events. Religion can be a space of indoctrination or transformation. But none of them can do what only you can do for yourself, what you are required to do, what you are entrusted to do.

Anger is like newsprint. It catches fire fast, but it cannot sustain the blaze for the long haul. One of humanity's greatest tasks, which is both deeply personal and collective, is finding what keeps the inner fire going despite the political and social climates and to throw logs on the fire, logs of hope and creativity and joy and community and truth and beauty and transcendence and love and friendship and wonder and curiosity and laughter and humanity and courage. This is how we keep ourselves and our families and our world warm, even in the dead of winter.

Despair cannot win without our surrender.

Do not surrender the spark no matter how dark or hopeless. Do not settle for counterfeit logs that will only burn up your valuable inner resources. Do not wait for others to tell you what you need, go into the inner sanctum to hear for yourself, and tend your inner fire like it is your central vocation. 

This is the closest thing to faith I know. It is the only truth I can believe right now. But it is everything.

Run toward the light. Run toward the hope. Run toward the beauty.