Chapter 18: Liberated from Longcuts by Light

Chapter 18: Liberated from Longcuts by Light

            For a year of my life, I was a reading specialist with a national tutoring company. One day the principal told me I had a new student, Brady, and handed me some reports from experts who had figuratively thrown their hands in the air, saying that Brady could not learn to read. So, how on earth, I wondered, could I do anything to help in fifty minute one-on-one sessions?  The first week I was optimistic that at least he could learn to recognize alphabet letters. By the end of the second week, I was ready to write a report echoing the others in his file. It was so puzzling to me because he spoke just like any other eight-year-old. He was happy as he shared stories about his life. He remembered many things I said to him but after two weeks, he still could not tell an A from a Z. I could tell he was discouraged. One day as I was desperately trying to help him, I remembered seeing another teacher teach a student to learn to sight read the color words—red, blue, green, yellow, black, brown, purple, and brown—by using crayons. I happened to have a box of eight large crayons in my desk. I showed Brady where to look on each crayon for the color word. All the while I’m thinking, when he can’t even identify an alphabet letter, it’s a waste of time to think he can pick out a whole word. But I was wrong. He first “read” blue on the blue crayon. I handed him the yellow crayon. He pointed to the word and “read” yellow. He “read” all eight color words. We did it over and over again. He was delighted. He smiled and giggled. He thought he could read. Then I wrote the color words on flashcards, using the blue crayon to write blue, yellow to write yellow, etc., to see if he could begin to see words as words rather than as labels on crayons. He could. Then I looked deep into his eyes to see if I dared go the next step. A few days later, I took a black crayon and wrote one color word on eight cards and handed the cards to him. I laid the crayons around the room on the floor and asked him to match the word on the card with the word on the crayon. I reminded him he could look on the side of the crayon and match the words. It took some time but he did it! The next day he had regressed some but after a while, he could do it again. Then I asked him to hand me the card that had “purple” written on it. He looked through the cards with a look I knew too well, “I can’t. I don’t understand. I’m stupid.”        

            I waited and then I saw the light of grasping the idea turn on, and he handed me the “purple” card. After three more sessions, he could flip through those cards, no matter what order they were in, and read them. He could read eight words! I invited his mother in. I said, “Brady, hand your mother the card that has the word “black” written on it. He did. I invited in the principal. She was so amazed that she ran into her office and got coupons for a free pizza and ice cream and gave them to him. Brady and his family moved shortly after this experience, so I don’t know the end of the story, but I do know I saw an actual light of cognition come into his eyes. Later as I reviewed the moment, I thought of the absolute, beyond compare moment for both Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller when the light of cognition dawned and Helen understood that the tickling feelings her teacher was making in her hand as she felt water running over her other hand meant “water.” 

            Are you wondering what having a light turn on in your brain has to do with longcuts and agency? The light, the dawning of understanding, helps you avoid longcuts or helps you find an exit if you are in a longcut. Light is energy; light dispels darkness; light illuminates opportunities; light expands agency. Light in nearly all cultures symbolizes intelligence, goodness, and a higher power because without light there would be no life. Most addiction-recovery programs teach how accepting a higher power helps you have strength to fight your way back into the light. The opposite of light, of course, is darkness, where there is no life.           

            A couple of winters ago, we were without electrical power for three and one-half days. The first day was kind of fun as we tried various ways to enjoy the opportunity to be like pioneers. We donned multiple layers of clothing, (The question became: How many layers of clothing can you wear and still move?), lit our wood-burning stove, cooked on top of the stove, read by candlelight and firelight. It was kind of romantic. Day two was not nearly so fun. On the afternoon of day three, we went to a restaurant that was not in the power-outage area. We arrived at four and ate dinner. At ten, our waitress came and apologetically said: “I’m sorry we are closed.” We must have looked at her sadly because she said, “We figured you don’t have power at home.” As we again slept in the only room we could heat, we marveled at how dark it was, how quiet it was, how cold it was, how lonely we felt. Being in an addictive cycle is like living without electricity. When the power went back on the next day, we felt energized. Our spirits lifted to the hum of the refrigerator, the sloshing of clothes in the washing machine, the joy of e-mail, as we were once more in touch with the world! Light gives us energy and motivation.

            We have a small light table our grandchildren use for tracing and other art projects. If it’s not plugged in, it doesn’t work. There is no light coming out of it. People are like light tables, bringing to light ideas, happiness, goodwill, love. Teachers who help their students develop life skills are light tables to their students, as I hope I was for Brady. Doctors who teach their patients to avoid the longcuts of poor health habits are light tables to their patients. Family and friends can be light tables, emitting light to help others identify and avoid longcuts. To give or share light you have to be plugged in to a source of light and power.

            At some point you learned that light is energy and travels 186,282 miles per second. You know without light you can’t see. You know darkness is dispersed by light and that light provides warmth and is the key ingredient in the photosynthesis process and that sunlight powers our planet, and that sunlight hitting the earth right now only left the sun eight minutes ago. When you think of the image of the New Testament light set on a hill that cannot be hid, it couldn’t be much of a light, yet it could be seen for miles. Some flashlights can be seen two miles away; some high-powered ones up to fifty. If you use a laser, which is compacted light and doesn’t scatter, you could probably see the laser’s light on the moon. It’s utterly incredible that light can actually be seen 2.5 million light years away. On a clear night, if you know where to look with only binoculars, you can see the light of the Andromeda Galaxy.

            Generating and packaging light is probably the greatest accomplishment of our modern era. In the past, most everything shut down when the sun dropped into the western horizon each evening. Even when oil and candles were sources of light, you couldn’t read under the covers with an open flame for a simplistic example. Think of how much the productivity of America would decrease if all work stopped when it got dark and didn’t start back up again until dawn the next morning. Because of our various sources of light, we can be as prolific at night as in the day. This is one reason developing countries struggle to educate their children who have to herd animals and tend crops during the daylight hours and would do school work at night excepting for the fact that the families can’t afford kerosene for lanterns, candles, or batteries. Lack of light also impacts personality. Seasonal affected disorder is a formal name for the wintertime blues that comes because there is less sunlight. Light dispels the darkness of poverty, repression, and depression.

            Mr. Shimon Peres, former prime minister of Israel, was asked how the Arab/Israeli conflict would ever be resolved. Mr. Peres answered with a story. A Jewish rabbi was conversing with two friends. The rabbi asked one of the men, "How do you know when the night is over and the day has begun?" His friend replied, "When you look into the distance and can distinguish a sheep from a goat, then you know the night is over and the day has begun." The second was asked the same question. He replied, "When you look into the distance and can distinguish an olive tree from a fig tree; that is how you know." They then asked the rabbi how he could tell when the night is over and the day begins. He thought for a time and then said, "When you look into the distance and see the face of a woman and you can say, 'She is my sister.' And when you look into the distance and see the face of a man and can say, 'He is my brother.' Then you will know the light has come" (in Discourses of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Volume 1: 1995-1999). Light dispels the darkness of prejudice.

            In the same way, light repels criminals who prefer to work in the dark because the lighter the area, the greater risk of being recognized. In lighted places, the police are more visible. Good lighting encourages residence to spend time on their porches and yards as informal surveillance. In lighted areas, more people walk at night, again a type of informal surveillance. In the daylight when criminals are looking for places to commit crime that night, the mere presence of lighting is a deterrent. Better lighting increases community pride. For some reason when there’s more light residence are more likely to report suspicion persons. In a 1992 Sacramento, California project, several crime deterrents were implemented, including increased lighting. “The New Helvetia and River Oaks Project… sought to rehabilitate a downtown neighborhood consisting of two adjacent public housing projects decimated by gang and narcotics problems….  The improved lighting component included removing heavy growth from existing lighting and poles, repairing all broken lights, and installing additional sodium lights and light poles. A resident was then employed to report burned out lights because the housing authority employees were usually gone before dark.

            “By the end of 1995, robberies were down 73 percent, felony down 73 percent, felony assaults were down 74 percent, and narcotic calls were down 94 percent…. By April 1994, a Sacramento Magazine survey of 1,000 members of the Sacramento Association of Realtors resulted in the area being voted “Most Improved Neighborhood.” A 1995 survey of residents found improved resident satisfaction, with 80 percent no longer wishing to move from the area” (http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/RIC/Publications/e1208-StreetLighting.pdf).  Light drives out crime.

            One day on the way to finding out something else, I found the word pellucidity that comes from the Latin pellucidus, meaning “admitting the passage of light, to shine through.” I was happy to find a word that explains a phenomenon I watch play out in lives of family and friends and at times when a light dawns in the mind as it did to Brady. I believe there is light in every person and that light, a person’s personal goodness or knowledge or love, can shine through him or her to help light others’ way, not just teachers and doctors but everyone. Using the concept of pellucidity as the light within each that can be used to project down a shortcut, you and I can better protect, enlighten, and comfort a hurting spouse, a lonely parent, an anxious teen, or a brother or sister who is struggling with addiction, divorce, depression, death or any of the more mundane longcuts in life. No doubt you know people who seem to be plugged in to an unseen energy source and radiate light, contrasted with others who give off only an occasional flicker.

            While Richard and I were on the Oregon coast we toured the lighthouse at Yaquina Head, Oregon’s tallest at ninety-three feet. We earned an “I survived the climb!” badge as we made it to the top of the 114 steps, where we learned a little about how lighthouses work and how important they are. Before electricity, the lighthouse keeper and his family had to haul oil up those 114 steps twice a day to fuel the beacon. The romantic appeal of lighthouses collides with the fact that living in a lighthouse was extremely hard work in an isolated location, in substandard conditions where the fury of the weather was a constant concern. Gradually, as technology improved, electricity powered the lighthouse. In 1966 the light at Yaquina Head was automated. Now an ultra-modern beam clicks on and off in a pattern that identifies it as the lighthouse at Yaquina Head. Its signature is two seconds on, two seconds off, two seconds on, then 14 seconds off. Lighthouses, which are usually positioned at a high point on cliffs, both warn of dangers conditions—rocks, reefs, sharp and uneven coastlines—and welcome ships as a sentinel at the edge of a safe harbor. There are people in our lives who serve as lighthouses who radiate a light powerful enough to give “light unto all that are in the house,” and there have been people in history who have been lighthouses to nations with their light high on a hill that “cannot be hid” (Matthew 5:14-15). Lighthouses are effective because of their light and height, making God the ultimate lighthouse. In every life, there are times when you scan with squinted eyes the dark horizon before you for a person or higher power to warn of danger and help you navigate stormy longcuts. Sometimes you may have your path lighted when you were traveling dark road.

A couple recently had an opportunity to use the concept of pellucidity by allowing their light to shine for a stranger. The wife was driving on a treacherous stretch of freeway between two mountains on a winter night with no moon. She was traveling under the speed limit, and her squint showed the strain she was feeling. Her husband sat in the passenger seat, wide-eyed. Suddenly, almost simultaneously, they said, “What’s that?” About fifteen feet in front of them, in their lane, was a slow-moving vehicle with no tail or brake lights. The wife put steady pressure and the brake, then moaned as she realized how nearly she had come to hitting what appeared to be a long tractor-trailer. She said, “Help me pass him.” Her husband thought for a moment, then asked, “What would you think about following him down the canyon to prevent other cars from hitting him?” As they slowly made their way down the mountain, shielding the slow vehicle from the rear and alerting oncoming drivers to its presence with the car’s emergency lights flashing, they realized that what others had done for them throughout their lives was exactly what they were doing for this stranger.

            Light makes plants grow and distant galaxies visible. Light keeps ships from running aground. Light lets doctor’s see inside the human body. Light fights seasonal affected depression. Light dawns when you teach or learn a new concept, and light keeps our neighborhoods safe. We can become individuals filled with light. We can absorb the light and become a lighthouse for others with our own distinct signal. Light augments agency and reveals the danger lurking down dark longcuts. As we are filled with light, the negatives of life will be repulsive to us. We will seek goodness in our language, in our entertainment choices, in our relationships. But the most important part of pellucidity is when light shines within and through you to see an enemy as a sister or a brother, which if enough of us do, will at some point transform centuries of hate and war into peace. Agency opens doors and provides opportunities. Agency lets light guide our lives. Light keeps us out of longcuts. May it so be with you.