SITTING IN DARKNESS

I was sitting in darkness this morning, and yet I knew a light was letting itself spread through the world. The room at home was dark, but the little and large light of kindness was caring for me and the many billions of people on earth. Only a small night-light was lit in the kitchen in our house, but I knew the sunlight of neighborliness was persistently spreading everywhere. It was down at the service station by the Interstate, where, since most customers prefer friendliness over meanness, they shine the lamp of graciousness as they get their gas and coffee. Kindness was down in Mystic, where I’ve seen early walkers wearing smiles like lights before dawn, and it was surely shining over at Carson’s Store and Cafe in Noank, where patrons praise more than criticize, and like wholehearted coffee better than crankiness. I closed my eyes and even saw friendliness finding its steady way among the heartbreaks in Syria, where savagery seems to rule, but where thoughtfulness and consideration quietly conquer, day after ferocious day. As I sat in the darkness, the dawn came quietly with its low light above my neighbors’ houses, and the light of the goodness of this world, I knew, was winning easily over evil, everywhere, as it always does.