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Daily Dose (Jan 28 – 31)

TUESDAY JAN 28 —

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
This week we remember and embrace our capacity to light candles… Candles of empathy and compassion and healing and restoration.

And today we commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It marks the 80th anniversary of Soviet forces liberating the German Nazi camp — the last major observance any notable number of survivors will be able to attend.
Only a few dozen Holocaust survivors from Auschwitz remain, the youngest of the 7,000 who were liberated, on Jan. 27, 1945.
Remembering stories of candles lit in the darkest of places. This week I read, “One of my heroes is a woman named Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman who lived in Amsterdam in the 1930s and ’40s. Her early diaries reveal her to be immature and self-centered. But as the Nazi occupation lasted and the horrors of the Holocaust mounted, she became more generous, kind, warm and ultimately heroic toward those who were being sent off to the death camps. She volunteered to work at a labor camp called Westerbork, where Dutch Jews were held before being transferred to the death camps in the east. There she cared for the ill, tended to those confined to the punishment barracks and became known in the camp for her sparkling compassion, her selfless love. Her biographer wrote that ‘it was her practice of paying deep attention which transformed her.’ It was her ability to really observe others — their anxieties, their cares and their attachments — that enabled her to enter into their lives and serve them.
It did not save her. In 1943, she herself was sent to Auschwitz and was murdered. But she left a legacy: what it looks like to shine and grow and be a beacon of humanity, even in the worst imaginable circumstances.”
(Thank you David Brooks, How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times)

Yes, and amen. Let us honor the permission to shine a light and be a beacon of humanity.
Let us take to heart this reminder from Etty Hillesum, “Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”

And I love this; “her practice of paying deep attention.”
Yes, we light candles simply by being present.
By paying attention even and especially in very small ways.
By embracing Sawubona, which means, “I see you”; the God in me, sees the God in you.
No one of us is on this journey alone. Taking to heart Mother Teresa’s reminder, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

“Be a kind voice in this broken hearted world give grace and be ready to receive it. Listen so well than the person you’re with can rest in your attention for a moment.  Be a light. Be a light. Be a light.” Nanea Hoffman

WEDNESDAY JAN 29 — “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” Thank you Eleanor Roosevelt.

We went to the outskirts of Bourke (Mother Teresa writes), where all the Aborigines were living in those little small shacks made of tin and old cardboard. I entered one of those little rooms and told the man living there, “Please allow me to make your bed, wash your clothes, to clean your room.”
He kept saying, “I’m alright, I’m alright.”
“But you will be more alright if you allow me to do it.”
Then he allowed me, and at the end, he pulled from his pocket a little old photograph of his father. I said, “You are so like your father.” He was overjoyed. I blessed the photo, gave it to him, and it went back into the pocket near his heart.
After I cleaned the room I found in the corner a big lamp, full of dirt. I said, “Don’t you light this lamp, such a beautiful lamp?”
He replied, “For whom? Months and months nobody has ever come to me. For whom will I light it?”
So I said, “Won’t you light it if the Sisters come to you?”
And he said, “Yes.”
So the Sisters started going to visit him for only about 5 to 10 minutes a day. They started lighting that lamp. After some time, the man got into the habit of lighting the lamp himself. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the Sisters stopped going to his shack (although they used to go every morning).
I forgot completely about my first visit, and then after two years he sent word, “Tell Mother, my friend, the light she lit in my life is still burning.”
(Adapted from Mother Teresa, Come be My Light )

I need this more than ever.
There are days when my spirit succumbs to darkness, and to a palpable discouragement.
And yes, we need stories more than ever. To remind us (to remind me) that very simple gestures–of kindness and mercy and grace–can make a profound difference.
Simple gestures…
…to light a lamp
…to give hope
…to listen and to see
…to embrace and to honor
…to empower
…to reignite hope and healing

“As we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

THURSDAY JAN 30 — In the Holocaust Museum there is a story about an exchange in a concentration camp on the Day of Liberation (1945). The prisoners still alive in concentration camps, were being set free. A young American Lieutenant, extraordinarily moved by the bleak and foreboding nature of the setting, asked one prisoner to show him the camp. As they approached a building, the lieutenant opened a door for the young woman, and she collapsed in tears. Certain he had offended, he did his best to comfort her. After some time, she told him, “I am weeping because it is the first time in years that someone has done anything kind for me. Thank you.”
With one simple gesture of kindness, a lamp is lit.

I don’t tell this story of the Holocaust Museum as some kind of motivational tool. As if there is an obligation to “be kind.” I tell it as an affirmation, and as a reminder—mostly to myself—that within each of us there is a light. And that this light—of hope and dignity, of delight and passion, of justice and grace, of beauty and wonder—still shines, regardless of whatever may conceal it.
And yes, there are times we forget. However, there are also times when a simple act of kindness, or gift of compassion, rekindles the light in our own spirit.
This gift we give to another, becomes a gift we gratefully receive. In the story, both the giver and the receiver are liberated.

No. It’s not easy.
I received this email from a Sabbath Moment reader,
“I think my inner fire has gone out. I am normally a pretty out going, giving, strong, open minded and kind spirit. Lately I find I just feel tired and weary with people and my own life. Not even sure who to trust. I just feel numb. Has this ever happened to you?”
“Yes,” I write her, “it has.”
Yesterday we told the story of Mother Teresa visiting a small dirty shack to light a candle. And here’s the deal, she wasn’t in that shack just to be kind. She was there to shine. In reading her book (Come Be My Light), you realize that she did so at a time when her own life was racked with doubt and frustration and moments of deep despair. So. Yes, even from darkness, the light still shines. I take extraordinary hope in that. It does my heart good.

Savor moments in your day my friends.
Take delight in small gifts.
And be ready to “open the door” for someone who may need it.

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” Albert Schweitzer

FRIDAY JAN 31 — “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” Thank you, Eleanor Roosevelt.

In April 1945 (at the end of the war), a train transport carrying hundreds of women concentration camp prisoners from Freiberg, stopped at the village of Horni Briza. They were met there by stationmaster, Antonin Pavlicek.
Train was shunted because of track repairs needed.
Mr. Pavlicek, taking his job seriously, walked the length of the train (while SS guards attempted to keep him back) and the full horror of its living cargo struck him. He negotiated and had many of the women moved to other covered wagons at the station, because of the cold.
His first instinct, shock.
His second, kindness.
When Mr. Pavlicek saw how grateful the prisoners were for this small kindness and realized what terrible condition they were in, he had an idea. It had been by sheer chance that their train had stopped in Horni Briza but—as a devout Catholic—he wanted to do what was morally right. So, at 6:30 a.m. the following morning, Sunday, 22 April, instead of going to mass he paid a visit to Josef Zoubek, the director of the kaolin factory, and Antonin Wirth, the landlord of the Tovarni Hostinec, the local inn. He asked the two men how quickly they could prepare a large quantity of food to be given to the prisoners.
Of course, the SS Unterscharfuhrer was resistant, who saw “no point in feeding those destined to die.”
After more negotiation, an agreement was struck that a canteen would be made available (at the town’s expense) to serve one hot meal to the half-starved women.
The prisoner’s plight quickly spread.
Ten-year-old Jaroslav Lang said, “To begin with we didn’t even know there were prisoners on the train… we ran home to our mother and asked for some bread to give them. She was very afraid but still she gave us a little something. Everyone was living on coupons at the time because of the shortages, but they gave up their own rations for those on the train.”
(Adapted from Born Survivors, Wendy Holden)

Yes.
No one of us can make it alone.
When life is on tilt, where do our marching orders come from?
Start here: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Fear says, “I’ll make you safe.”
But love says, “You are safe.”
The stationmaster continued to feed whomever he could while promising to send messages to prisoners’ loved ones, at continual risk to himself.
“This part of your life is not about being a reporter,” the abbot once told Thomas Merton. “It’s about listening to your heart.”
“Vocation,” Merton wrote, “does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be.”

Prayer for our week…
When the world feels hopeless and heartless,
take a moment to look around.
There are beautiful humans everywhere,
often hiding in plain sight in cabs,
on buses, in cafes, on trains, in libraries,
on park benches, in laundromats, on subways.
They may not be rich or well-educated.
They may be broken and hurting themselves.
They may not have much to offer
in terms of worldly goods.
But they are the comforters, encouragers, sharers,
teachers, servers, healers, mentors, connecters,
helpers, and counselors who keep
the random hurting humans,
the weary and the lost,
the invisible sufferers who walk among us every day,
going just long enough
to find their hope and strength again.
It doesn’t take a degree or wealth
or a grand gesture to make a
difference in this world.
It just takes a human who cares.
L.R. Knost

Photo… Early morning this week, a bit before sunrise. Looking over the Hood Canal at the Cascade Mountain range. To calm the heart and spirit… I’m so grateful for your photos, please send them to [email protected]


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