People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
–Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
********************
I was having trouble describing what I saw in this painting, Nightglow, so I went looking for other people’s word to help me. I came across this quote from Kubler-Ross, the famed psychiatrist who pioneered the study of death and dying and introduced the Five Stages of Grief to us.
It’s a simple quote and a simple premise- that we are measured not by how we behave when things are at their best but by how we rise to face obstacles and problems. How we gather light in the darkness and how we reflect it and give off our own light.
One always hopes that they are the one who gives off the light, that they possess the ability to shine brightest at the darkest moments. Perhaps it’s just a romantic notion of a heroic quality that evades most of us. But we can, and should, aspire to such a quality. It is far too easy to respond to darkness with our own darkness. We see this every day, in so many situations, and continue to stumble through the murk.
Light will show us the way through darkness every time.