“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” ~ Leonard Cohen

The light gets in and the light goes out. Every flame needs oxygen. Yet when we are filled with darkness, it’s tough to make space in our hearts and find light in our minds.

And that’s because the oxygen that fuels our blood dries our hearts. What beats our bodies to life loses feeling. We lose feeling not because we don’t have it, but because they’re so strong we block them all out.

“Light thinks it travels faster than anything, but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it.” ~ Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Fear burns our lights out. We beat ourselves with thoughts because we cannot feel. The heart beats loyally. We forget the rhythms of love and feed fear and in fear the darkness eeks in and the light eeks out.

Hope is an intangible gift, the butterfly that lives a short while. But there’s always another caterpillar and another butterfly.

Our fear takes us into depression, anger and we fall into a void where we lose our soul but only because we cannot look our heart in the eye.

 “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections.” ~ John Lennon

The heart does not need eyes to see us. The heart always knows the truth if only the mind will connect and let its truth speak in a way we can hear.

Too often it’s easy to see past another’s shadows to where the light shines, winding its way through the darkness to find the way to shine.

I know from watching friends and those I love. I can see their fear in a way I cannot face mine.

Yet my fear fuels me more than love I believe. And watching those I love suffer hurts as if I were watching a mother put a pillow over a crying child’s head…because what she can give cannot quiet the cries. Tragedy greets us all in degrees.

The tragic has a sardonic humor because it cackles when we most need to cry.

And yet so much has eeked out we cannot smile or cry though light will find a way in, if only we take the fear and hold it like the mother needs to hold the child, even though the child cannot stop crying.

I’ll take a hug any day of the week.

We need to hug our fear as if it were a crying child because in truth, it is.

So to those I love and know, friends and neighbors who give when they feel they have no more, I want to offer a little light. I want you to know love loves love. And if you can make that slight crack in your heart to let the light in, you’ll find hope and hear your heart’s truth again.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson

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Editor: Sara Crolick