It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.
– Sharon Salzberg
For many years I perceived the opposite of love to be hate. I was born in witch burnings of McCarthy that shattered what would become my profession. Love Thy Neighbor was the message in church and nowhere in public society was the opposite message more contrasted. I was growing up in a world of the Red Scare. Commercials warned us of the need for bomb shelters and vigilance of our neighbors who might be communists. In elementary school, in Miami, we had fire drills and air raid drills as the Cuban Missile crisis loomed over our daily prayers. The minute by minute fear that hovered in the clouds above us pressed down into the atmosphere. I hated that. I found solace in the ritual of music and sacraments and the mystical world of Latin. Amidst the mesmerizing fractured rays of light, now the heavens illuminated mystical metaphors instead of impending devastation. Here I could control my field of safety, right? I decided to be a saint.
When I moved to Washington DC area at 9, I met Dr. Martin Luther King and aligned with his dream. I watched Kennedy’s Casket parade by my feet with Jackie in her pillbox hat, John John and Caroline walking lightly along the path as the riderless horse reared its mighty mane. Close contact with 2 of our most famous 20th Century Martyrs. I choose Joan of Arc as my confirmation saint. She would be my great role model to enflame my life path. She was my sword against hate and the invisible reign of terror that fractured our lives so insidiously.
Jump forward some 45 years plus and I am just now discovering how many times I have wallowed in the polarity of love. Now I understood it as Fear! I thought I needed to be a saint and the only path to sainthood was martyrdom. So much for a child’s belief in church and safety. What an amazing illumination. I don’t actually want to be a martyr! ( I may not even want to be a saint….i am still working on that!)
What an awesome dark room from which you can emerge! To realize some long held belief has loomed over you like the ever impending cosmic annihilation. A belief imprinted most deeply by your trust in those you love. How many times I have chosen to be the martyr and felt victimized by others, by Castro, by the Atomic bomb creators? Has that ever happened to you? Well, maybe not the whole Castro deal but-some one or something else? Wow! I love the lights that switched on when I realized that. I am so grateful for everyone who has helped me “get It”. I have focused the fires at my feet into rocket boosters. I feel ready to launch to greater heights than ever before! I am ready to step out on a ledge untethered.
I have long taught that love is like light. You know, when your room is dark, that when you add the tiniest spark of light, it is no longer dark. We can transform dark into light by turning on your light. And where does the dark come from, anyway? Can you turn on the dark? Try it! Isn’t it possible that darkness is merely the absence of light? Right? What if we chose to enlighten our view of life? Could we relinquish our need to be martyrs? Victims of our own inner darkness? Is there truly any fear that can not be fractured by your light and love? When will you flip the switch? When will you step out on a ledge of love, untethered by fear?
