I usually will rather be found writing than quoting, but three occur to me as I do so. There's an old saying, that "God hath no power over a mother's prayer" - or something like that. Well I think I am a mother, at least some have called me "you muthuh"... Among other reasons that I have candles lit in my place, one candle remains ever lit, a long burning oil candle I try to replace just before it goes out. This candle has but one purpose: anywhere, at any one time, any given moment, somewhere someone is suffering at the hands of another, right this moment, and I won't know about it till I read it in tomorrow's or next week's paper, or through any other media, or never. I don't obsess over it, but it disturbs me, because we really are powerless to do much of anything about it. It might pertain to a woman, a girl or a boy, a defenseless man or a defenseless child, it may apply to an animal, large or small. But out there someone is certainly the target of mistreatment, of cruelty, of sadism, or in some way tragically, unjustly left to his or her or its fate. And quite alone wth it at that.
Okay, that's life. Yet as Christ said, in his best King James, "You can purchase a sparrow for a farthing, but know: that not a sparrow falleth to the ground, but the heavenly Father knoweth." Now that Father is a Mother if that's the case, because I can rant myself ragged over the ignorance, the arrogance, the hypocrisies and the deals, the ideological or just plain illogical inhumanities, the anonymous hurt, the anonymous slow-death of victims of perpetrators. What can I do for the victims, what can I do about the perpetrators? There's an old saw which we've all heard too often, but who does it? "Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness."
Never mind who said it, who does it? Whatever else I do or don't do or cannot – there is a Mother's prayer ceaselessly intoning in my heart, going out from there and joining with that candle in knowing, in partnership with our heavenly Father, that there is a sparrow fallen. That one might be reached or not, might be rescued or not, might be comforted or not, but one thing in my seeming powerlessness that I do know: that one shall no longer be alone; somewhere in the city, somewhere in the world, somewhere in my living room – someone is listening, is breathing with that one, is sending out beams of love, of compassion, of succor, of joy.
There may be no ego in this, no helper-syndrome, no self-comforting. Where there is ego there will never be peace. Where the ego is overcome for the sake of the real Self, that already is peace, and that is power.
Everyone has an ego, it has a purpose and must be developed. Imagine though, what your work place would be like if everyone were egoless – not flat, not dull, not boring, not alike, this is what egolessness ain't. I mean, creative, active, giving, cooperating, achieving together or alone – but it's all no longer "about me". No bullshitting or griping or whining, no proselytizing, no ideologies. Just in-joying an ego-free environment. As our old friend Paul Reps said, "Until it's fun better left undone."
So when I so much as glance at that candle, I wrap someone anonymous to me in the warmest wings of love, and project out joy, unabashed joy.
Join me if this moves you.
A Candle for a Farthing
