They say it is always darkest just before the dawn, which I suppose is supposed to be a simple way of saying that things always seem bleakest just before they start to improve. The problem is, as it so often is with things they say, this analogy starts to fall apart upon closer inspection. Dawn, is a given in the equation of life, you can count on it happening, every day. You can even calculate when it will occur on any given day; past or present, the dawn will come. You may not be here to see it, but, with almost 100% certainty, a new day will come.
Despite the platitudes offered by expressions such as this, and pretty much every film every aired on the Hallmark Channel, this level of certainty, is not something that can be easily extended to matters beyond natural phenomena, and fails rather epically when applied to life. No matter what they say, there is no way of knowing when the darkness of life will finally come to an end, or even if it will.
We are living through dark times; I’ll spare you the list – nothing productive will come from my typing it or your reading it. In fact it might even make things worse. But the point is, things kind of stink right now, and it doesn’t really seem to show any signs of stopping, improving, or even just slowing, any time soon. If anything, sometimes it feels like it is just getting worse. I don’t know if that is because it is actually getting worse, or simply because we tend to see what we are looking for, but I am seriously rooting for the latter.
Mr. Rogers suggested we look to the helpers, we look toward those individuals making a difference and doing what they can to help others. It reminds us, that as humans, we still have the capacity for kindness. Even in the worst of times, we can choose to help, to reach out, to take action and make a difference.
For some these actions may be heroic and even dangerous, but for the great majority of us, I suspect these actions will be far more prosaic. Simple things, like slowing down to let merging traffic into the lane, bringing in our neighbor’s garbage cans, or perhaps having a coffee with a friend who’s not doing so well. These simple acts of humanity won’t save a gunshot victim, or end famine, but they might just allow us to remember that there is light out there, and we can make it brighter.