Be A Pilot Light, Not A Firecracker
“I prefer a pilot light — the flame is nothing flashy, but once it is lit, it doesn’t go out. It burns steadily, and it burns forever.”
I took that picture last night from the highest point on the Ranch, looking northwest, an hour or so before the Comet Neowise was to appear. The setting sun still smudged the sky with an orange glow, and distant lights twinkled, but the foreground of sandstone, windswept trees, and coastal chaparral had vanished into darkness.
Incongruously, there’s cell phone reception up there, and suddenly a “breaking news” alert came in, announcing the death of John Lewis. So I thought about John Lewis as I stood on that ridge watching for the comet, and for a moment, it occurred to me that his brilliant life was a comet too. But no…his was a light more lasting and consistently visible. The struggle toward righteousness continues, and the love he preached burns steadily.
A pale, ghostly outline of the comet began to emerge, just beneath the Big Dipper, exactly as predicted. It was very indistinct, and I doubt I would have noticed it had it not been the object of our quest. Binoculars helped, and patience. It became more conspicuous as the sky grew darker, a bright luminous object with a long streak of tail cast in silvery blue. It looked like a comet in a children’s picture book, C is for Comet, something like that. We watched until we got too chilly, reassured that despite all the miseries and challenges happening on earth right now, the universe is still a place of wonder. As though to emphasize the point on a smaller scale, two little foxes cavorted in the headlight’s beam as we drove down the mountain.
It goes on. This morning, I glimpsed the yellow bird who poses on the highest branch of the honeysuckle shrub in front of our house, then quickly flies away. And I ate berry pie for breakfast, the best berry pie in the world, from a shop in Hermosa Beach, delivered to us by visiting friends who enable my new addiction. We also had a chat with our dear ones in England, and watched our little grandson with absurd fascination. He has doubled his weight since his early arrival in May, and he looks quite robust and alert, and I hope someday for the simple pleasure of seeing him in person.
I guess we all want something, big or small, but the path to those wants is particularly daunting these days. For starters, we have a global pandemic to conquer, and we are in the thick of a reckoning for the very soul of our nation. The November election will be a crucial turning point. Here’s how a historian friend of mine put it, “I genuinely believe this is the death rattle of white supremacy, and the GOP poisoning the common well with its divisive propaganda for small minds. The season is changing from winter in America, to early spring. There will still be dying spasms from the right—be careful picking up dead rattlesnakes—but I do believe we are on the cusp of a new consciousness.”
The cusp of a new consciousness…I like the sound of that. I feel it too, hope fluttering like a prayer flag in my heart. And I am trying to find ways to put my love into action. John Lewis said it well: Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.
While making noise and good trouble, we should probably take time out for comet gazing and eating pie. Replenish.
We must be pilot lights, burning steadily, burning long.