Reading to my kids tonight. A good story is a good story whether one watches a movie, reads a book, watches a t.v. show or listens to their father read a story aloud. 

One of the beautiful images in history is that of the candle illuminating the darkness. It’s been used metaphorically for hundreds of years to show the great light that helps us during our darkest hours. It’s been used to symbolize hope after death. It’s been used as a way to light our path.

And while that image is beautiful, how often do we think about why it is dark in the first place?

As I progress through this challenge, an idea is forming that we create our own darkness. It seems we are so attracted to the metaphor of the light because we view the world as dark. We cheer when someone tells how they got up after life kicked them in the gut because we feel the world is out to get us too. We relish our vacations with such an intense fervor because we see our responsibilities as burdens. We believe we could not do something because it was out of our control, so we feel powerless.

But what if we turned on the lights, rather than searching for a candle?

Is our world dark because we shut off the lights? Was the darkness just a fleeting shadow, or did we throw the switch?

I still very much like the image of a candle illuminating the dark.

But I know that I am the one who chooses to turn off the lights.