A Year of Becoming

              As 2018 draws to a close and a New Year looms near, I find myself reflecting on 2018 and things I have learned.  It has been a year of immense change and growth, a year of immense pain and intense hope.  I didn't know you could have so much peace in the midst of so much pain or so much hope in the midst of so much uncertainty.  We tend to see these things as mutually exclusive, but they are not.  This year taught me so much about the beauty of authenticity.  I learned this year that when you become vulnerable and honest, you experience a freedom in living that is beyond compare.  The process is painful, like walking through fire and feeling the unnecessary things burn off.  But the reward is great.  When you lay out your cards and stop playing the “everything’s okay” game two things will likely happen.  Some people will be upset that you had the nerve to acknowledge the truth.  You will lose relationships that you never thought you would lose (or wanted to lose).  But this is not the end of the story.  Because when you show your true, authentic self and stop trying to hide the broken pieces of your story, something else happens as well.  The people who truly love you will love you in a way that is more precious than any love you have ever known.  Because now you are giving them the chance to love the real you – all of you.  Not the putting on your best face and pretending everything is good “you”, but the face in the mud dealing with your reality “you”.  You find out that there are people in your life who will hold your hand through your most difficult days and laugh with you when laughter is desperately needed.  You find that some people can accept and love you even if things look messy.  You will grieve the ones who couldn’t love the authentic you.  But you will learn to truly value the relationships that stand the test of authenticity.  And when you are finally at peace with being authentic and real – you will learn to love yourself fully as well.  And suddenly, when you love yourself and you have the freedom to be real, it doesn’t really matter that your honesty is not okay with everyone. 

              Many Christians live their lives in fear of being broken.  We think if there is a bruise on our story, we become less beautiful to God.  I might have said before this year that God’s love was not about my performance.  I might have intellectually believed that was true.  But I didn’t really believe it until this year.  This year I learned in my soul and in the deepest parts of my being that God’s love for me transcends every part of my story.  I have felt his love for me in the most precious ways in the most needed moments.  He has whispered to me over and over again “You are okay, and I am here.”  And those words he has spoken to my heart over and over again have gotten me out of bed in the morning.  There’s something about being honest with God and saying, “I’m at the end of myself here” that allows him into your life in places that he is not welcome as long as you are saying “I’ve got this”.  As a parent, I want desperately for my children to be able to come to me with any situation and be authentic and real.  How beautiful it must be to God when he sees his children live out of their truest selves, refusing to hide from him or anyone else.  I am learning to entrust my story to him completely.  It will not look like the one I wrote in my head and in my heart.  But while grieving the loss of a dream, there is the hope of a future that only God holds.  There is a faith in redemption and a joy in knowing that no matter where life leads – he is there.  And that means it will be good.

              To anyone reading this – I encourage you in the coming year to strive to be authentic.  Be brave enough to be honest with yourself and others about the truth of your life.  Live in freedom, not in bondage to the need for approval.  We can spend our entire lives worshipping the god of approval, which leads to an empty existence full of shallow relationships.  Or we can be authentic and real and live our best lives in truth.  We can love and be loved wholeheartedly.  Authenticity does not come cheaply, nor is it the path of least resistance.  But it is invaluable, and it is the path of most radiance. 

No Room in the Inn

“No room in the inn.”  These words are echoing in my heart and mind today.  They are haunting me.  They are challenging me.  “No room.  No room.”  I started out my day by reading a news story about migrant children having tear gas sprayed in their direction at the border.  “No room in the inn.”  It is the Christmas season.  We are celebrating the birth of Jesus.  And all I can think about is his parents being told there was no room for them in Bethlehem.  The Savior of the world was turned away.  A mother in labor, sent to a stable. 

              I can’t stop thinking about those children at the border – barefoot, hungry, scared, desperate.  And are a small percentage of the migrants at the border acting foolishly?  Sure.  But don’t pretend to know how foolishly you would behave if you were absolutely desperate for safety and security for your children.  And we are the gatekeepers.  We get to sit in our warm homes or offices and shop cyber-Monday deals today while real people cry out for help at our border.  And our President tweets about them like they are dogs.  Being born an American is a privilege that I did nothing to deserve.  And no one in that caravan chose which nation they would be in when they breathed their first breath.  I do not pretend to have all the answers on issues of immigration.  I know laws and systems are required.  But I do know this.  EVERY SINGLE desperate migrant at our border is a human being, made in the image of God.  And that baby who was born all those years ago – the one we are all celebrating right now – he came for each one of them.  His mother, Mary, sang the following words about God while he was tossing about in her womb:

“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.  He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.  He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”

And Jesus’ first recorded words to a crowd in the book of Luke would be these:

              “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

              And today in the United States of America people who claim to pattern their lives after this Jesus will cheer “Build a wall!”  and “Send them back where they came from!” and “They’re not our problem!”  They will retweet the President’s accusations that the people at the border are criminals and demand that we close our borders to everyone seeking asylum from unimaginable circumstances.  After all, our well-being is more important than the well being of “those people” because we just happen to be Americans.  And all I can picture today when I close my eyes are those beautiful, brown-skinned, brown-eyed, barefoot, exhausted children standing at our border and being told “There’s no room in the inn.  And we aren’t offering you a stable.”  And I just can’t help but think “Do we understand Christmas at all?”

A Poem for the Women who Grieve

A little girl alone in the dark, clinging to her teddy bear. 

The only man she’s ever trusted said it was because he loved her.

I wonder why she didn’t tell.

A teenage girl on her first date, new outfit, new freedom, new self.

He forced himself on her, pretended she asked.

I wonder why she didn’t tell.

A college student at her first party, just getting to know her new friends

She got to know one more than she ever wanted.

I wonder why she didn’t tell.

A middle-aged woman working long hours, making a name for herself.

He said if she told he would end her career.

I wonder why she didn’t tell.

Each time we ask why, we ignore a deep cry, an immense groan from women who grieve. 

We re-victimize and re-traumatize, when we trivialize the impact on their lives. 

And the shame it just grows, and it grows. 

And we wonder why she didn’t just tell someone, when it happened, when things could be done.

But what we can’t feel is the pain that she holds and the fear that unfolds if she says what she knows. 

Asking a victim why she didn’t tell and portraying her story as false, is like walking into a hospital room and kicking the sick in the face. 

She is hurting and broken, can’t forget what was taken, especially if everyone knows. 

So, she’s brave and she’s strong, tries to just carry on, but the pain it just grows and it grows. 

When she finally tells, the attacks they will come, from people who she’d never thought. 

She’ll hide all her thoughts, submit to the boss -the culture that says that her story is lost. 

And she’ll sit once again with the pain that she’s in, and the shame that she carries will scream and will spin.

And she’ll get up each day and she’ll fight for the healing.  Because she is fierce, and-no-she isn’t quitting. 

And her heart it just grows and it grows. 

And if culture won’t hear her, she’ll make herself known

She’ll reach out to the hurting, believe what she’s told.

She’ll stand up for the broken with their hands in hers, ‘cause the world around her can’t decide what she’s worth. 

Her worth wasn’t taken that day or that year, she was victimized, but-no-she won’t live in fear. 

Because fear was the goal and success it was had, but-no-not anymore, that girl’s finally mad.

And that anger will drive her to be all she can, to do all that she will.  And that man he won’t win.  He’s alone on that hill.

Culture and noise may be on his side, but the night that he hurt her a part of him died. 

And nobody wins when we make them be quiet, pretend it’s not happening and loudly deny it. 

Nobody wins, the victim, the thief, the children, the parents-no-EVERYONE weeps. 

And until we admit it and say what is it, the pain will keep coming, again and again.

And everyone loses, the girls and the boys, when will we hear their cries over the noise?

Where is Your Hope?

              I was reading John 5 this morning, and as I came to the end of it I noticed a passage that spoke deeply to me.  In verse 45 Jesus says, “Don’t think that I will accuse you before the Father.  Your accuser is Moses, the one in whom your hope rests.”  I immediately thought about how foolish the people he was addressing must have been.  They had Jesus Christ in their midst, and they had put their hope in Moses, who had long since passed.  The Jews had so heavily invested in the words of Moses.  Their law and scriptures were everything to them.  And this man, Jesus, had come and completely messed with their understanding of things.  They had their rituals, their laws, their systems, their traditions – and then Jesus.  He came in like a whirlwind and questioned all of it.  He brought forth this new system called grace and freedom, and they couldn’t comprehend that he actually was who he said he was.  Just a few verses back they were trying to accuse him for healing a man on the Sabbath day and telling the man to carry his mat.  After all, Moses said keeping the Sabbath was one of the 10 commandments.  Who was this man that said, “Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the Sabbath”?  Did he actually go there?  Did he touch that?  Didn’t he know what these people believed and what Moses had said?  These people had placed their hope squarely on Moses and refused to see the salvation and redemption that were quite literally staring them in the face.

              So now I want to talk about Moses as “accuser”.  When Jesus says that Moses is their accuser what could he mean?  Did he mean that Moses set out the laws and the laws were the accusers?  Maybe?  Probably, even.  But this morning when I read it the Spirit spoke something else to me about this passage.  Moses was the accuser because he was where they had misplaced their hope.  As human beings hope is essential.  It is necessary.  We lose the will to live when we run out of hope.  And Jesus is telling these people that he is there in the flesh – their hope right before their eyes.  But letting go of that which has held your hope for a very long time is no small feat.  In fact, many never learn to do it.  And they may want to harm anyone who asks them to re-evaluate things or dares to question their beliefs.  The Pharisees are prime examples of this.  They didn’t just want to dismiss Jesus.  They wanted him dead.  You see, Moses was their accuser because he was stealing their hope from the one true source of life – Jesus Christ.  The people had to be able to take God out of the box they had placed him in (quite literally on their foreheads) and realize that the fulfillment of scripture might not look how they had always expected it would.  The Messiah might not ride in with power and might and destroy the Roman establishment.  He might not save them in the way that they had seen kings “save” nations in the past with military strength and destruction.  He might ride in on a donkey and save his people by being beaten and crucified.  He might defeat Rome by loving its inhabitants even though they were lost.  He might not act like a “king” at all.  The things their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents had told them with best intentions may not have been exactly right.  But breaking out of those long-held beliefs and patterns requires an upending of everything you think you know.  It requires a humility beyond belief to be able to look at what “you’ve always thought” and admit that you might have been wrong.  After all, this is their hope you’re messing with.  And fear abounds when hope is at stake. 

              Let’s consider for a moment that we all have “accusers” in our lives.  For the Jews it was the words and laws of Moses.  Their lives completely revolved around them.  What do our lives revolve around?  For some of us it is still an attachment to law and order and a literal interpretation of scripture that requires complete obedience and rule-following in order to receive “grace”.   And those beliefs accuse us because our hope is in them and not Jesus.   But beyond religious ideas, where else do we place our hope?  Sometimes our hope is in how much money we make, how lovely our home is decorated or how well-behaved our kids appear in public (we can hide how they act at home).  Maybe our hope is in our national security, a stable economy or a political candidate.  Perhaps we place our hope in being liked and approved of by everyone we know.  It could be that our hope is in being beautiful, defying the aging process and staying within our "ideal weight".  Maybe we have lost any positive hope, and our hope of continuing to survive is in a beer bottle or on a computer screen, giving us just enough false hope to keep living until tomorrow.  Where is your hope?  Wherever we place our hope, whether in good things or bad, these things become our accusers.  When we read about the accuser in this passage, our religious understanding tends to take us to a place of immediately assuming Jesus is speaking of being accused in an eternal, heaven or hell sense.  But Jesus makes clear time and again that the Kingdom is here with his arrival.  Everything is different.  Our lives and choices are not just about eternity.  We are to be ministers of reconciliation here and now.  His words carry weight both temporal and eternal.  So, when we place our hope in things other than Jesus I submit that the accusation is now.  In misplacing our hope, we are unable to live in the freedom and light that Jesus offers.  If our hope is placed in success, safety, approval, etc. we will constantly be let down.  We are hoping in the inconsistent, the not hope-worthy, the world.  We allow these things to accuse us when we allow the lack of them to steal our joy.  When we cannot sleep at night and use anything we can to numb our pain, our hope has become our accuser.   When we expend all our resources, both physical and emotional, on things that are temporal, our hope becomes our accuser.  When our hope becomes our accuser, we are in a vicious cycle of misery that is hard to break.  But Jesus says, “I have come to set the prisoner free”.  We are chained psychologically and emotionally to these things that can only offer temporary hope.  And Jesus whispers in our ears, “I will not accuse you.  It won’t be me.  I will only free you.  I will only love you.  I will only give you life abundant.  Will you let me?”  Will we accept him for who he is?

Mother of Exiles

I read a New York Times article today about the origins of the song “God Bless America”.  It was written by a man whose family had immigrated to America from Russia when he was a child in order to escape extreme danger.  The words about how he loved his country were straight from the heart of one who would have been lost (at least physically speaking) without her.   And it has me thinking a lot on this fourth of July about our country - how she began, where she has traveled, and where she is now.  The backbone of our nation was a belief that all were created equal and should have the freedom to live and worship as they please.  Equality is at our core.  And so is hospitality.  The poem mounted inside the Statue of Liberty exclaims:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

              “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  These words echo the meaning of the nation that began those many years ago.  The foresight of our forefathers that self-evident truth proved all men created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights brings us back to the beginning.  Having faced persecution and danger, the inhabitants of our new land knew that what they had escaped was not life as God intended.  It was broken.  And, so, they set out to create a home that embodied freedom.  And welcoming immigrants who were fleeing treacherous situations was a key part of this mission. 

              We know that even in our early years, our citizens did not always live up to these claimed beliefs.  Just ask the American Indians.  Ask the African slaves.  Smell the blood of the civil war.  It is human nature to taste success and forget from whence one came.  It is the plot of many a good book or movie.  It is the life story of many a celebrity.  It is true for many of us.  And it is true of our nation.  It is entirely too easy to find oneself in a place of comfort and forget the place of discomfort that came before.  It is entirely too easy to become so entrenched in success that you lose the sense of who you are at your core – who you were created to be.  Once one who has struggled finds the pleasure of success, the human nature wants to do everything it can to hang on to that feeling.  One could argue that it is innate, this protective urge.  And in a society that thrives on individuality and the pursuit of individual happiness this package is easy to sell.  But that is when things begin to break.  When love of self becomes greater than love of all, our greatest ideals will be lost.  This is when the war erupts, the church collapses, the marriage fails.  When self-protection from perceived threats overshadows the desire to “lift our lamp beside the golden door” for the “tempest-tossed” we stray from lyrics like “Stand beside her and guide her” to lyrics like “We’ll stick a boot in your ass.  It’s the American way.”  And we wonder why we have enemies? 

              Many a middle-aged adult will realize that they have strayed from who they were, their ideals and beliefs, their living out of who God created them to be.  And they will search for those parts of themselves that were pure and inborn.  Any therapist will tell you that you must start at your childhood in order to arrive at a healthy adulthood.  And, hopefully before we finish this thing called life, each of us will find our way back to the peace of being an integrated person, connected to our beginning, middle, and present – aware of our successes and failures and resolute to move forward in a healthy manner.  In the same way, I dream that this great and beautiful nation will find herself in her roots.  I pray that as the debates get louder and the guns shoot longer, and the tempest-tossed weep at our shores begging for the oxygen of freedom - that we will look deep within ourselves.  I hope our “childhood” as a nation will remind us of who we were and what we stood for before we shifted our focus to all the things we stand against.  I pray that our citizens, who came themselves from immigrants long passed, will remember what life could be like for them today had not their ancestors entered this land.  I pray that our love of country will never outweigh our love of humanity.  May we find ourselves again in the far-off echo of a hand reaching out to the hurting and pulling them into community.  And may we hear that same echo in the voices of our youth who are actively seeking justice for humanity.  America is most beautiful when she wears a robe of diversity.  America is most safe when she seeks the welfare of humanity.  God bless America, land that I love.  Stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above. 

Oh,Susanna.....Won't You Cry for Us?

  

     This past summer my husband and I visited London to celebrate his 40th birthday.  We haven't done much world travel, so this was a big trip for us.  While we were there we visited the National Gallery.  It was unlike anything I have ever seen.  Thousands of paintings by the most world renowned artists adorned its walls.  There was a sense of experiencing something much larger than oneself, generations of art and emotion everywhere.  Many of the paintings were religious in nature.  There were so many beautiful paintings of Christ and a plethora of other Biblical characters.  But as we looked around, a painting caught my eye that confused me.  It was a painting of the Biblical account of Susanna and the Elders.  Brian and I looked at each other and asked "Who is Susanna?".  I couldn't remember ever learning about her in a Bible class or reading that name in my Bible.  So I looked up the story on my phone out of curiosity and found out that it was a part of the Apocrypha - writings that are included in the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Bibles that were omitted from the Protestant Bible because they are not in the Hebrew Bible.  This past week I got to study the apocrypha again in my class and the story of Susanna hit me even harder in light of what is going on right now in our culture.  Allow me to explain.
      Susanna was a godly, married woman.  She was bathing in her garden when two elders saw her and were attracted to her.  They approached her as she tried to return to her home and told her that unless she agreed to have sex with them they would accuse her of committing adultery with a young man.  Susanna refused to comply, and they had her arrested and convicted to death.  But a man named Daniel (this story is in the Greek book of Daniel) interrupts the proceedings and insists that they should question the elders to prevent the death of an innocent woman.  The two elders are cross-examined to get their account of finding Susanna committing adultery with the young man.  Their details do not match when they name two very different types of trees as the meeting place.  Their lies are revealed, and instead of Susanna dying, the two elders are put to death.
      Now, I have no idea if this story actually happened, but clearly this was a concern in society even in the times when the Biblical canon was being formed.  Imagine Susanna, a woman in a man's society.  She is threatened by "elders" who I would assume would be a very intimidating force.  And she refuses to let them use her.  She doesn't give in to the system that tells her that she is merely a woman and has to take whatever a man may throw at her.  She stands up for herself even if it means death.  And who comes to her defense, but a man?  A good man came to her defense.  And a good man stopped the bad men from succeeding in their evil. 
     Almost every day right now in the news we are hearing of another big name who is accused of sexual abuse or misconduct.  Men are losing their jobs and their good names.  Women who have been silent for years, carrying their scars in every moment of their lives, are speaking out and saying "me too".  There is a movement of women (and men) who have been abused banding together and saying "THIS STOPS NOW".  And it is a beautiful and utterly devastating moment in our history.  Beautiful because the darkness is being brought to light and the perpetrators can no longer hide.  Devastating because the broad spectrum of sexual sickness in our culture is being laid out on a table in plain sight for all of us to see.  I am in a couple of Facebook groups who have had discussions about this topic and the testimonies from women and men there are devastating.  But the most devastating are the stories in my children's ministry group of children who are dealing with this right now.  And I have to be honest, you guys, I am mad.  I am mad that we live in a world where women and children are regularly victimized by sex-crazed men.  I am mad that we have a porn industry that brings in BILLIONS of dollars every year, and no one is calling out the fact that this is destroying our men (and some women) and ultimately leading to the kinds of crimes that are being committed by hijacking normal and healthy attitudes toward sex.  I am mad that sex has been turned into something that God never intended for it to be, and yet we wonder what has gone wrong.  The stories, the tears, the lives in pieces, the scars, the faces, they are almost too much to bear.  And that anger turns to grief.  And out of the grief something must happen. 
     Susanna may not have made it into my Bible, but I think she has something valuable to teach us right now.  First of all, she shows us the courage and strength of the woman who stands up and tells her story instead of hiding behind her fear of the more powerful aggressor.  When these women (and men) speak out, WE HAVE TO HONOR THEIR PAIN.  We have to listen and HEAR them.  Secondly, WE HAVE TO BE DANIEL.  Someone had to stand up for Susanna here.  She had no status to defend herself.  Had Daniel not stepped in, she would have died an innocent woman, and the evil men who accused her would have walked free.  There are people who need a Daniel.  They are afraid to speak up without it.  And, ladies, certainly we can stand up together and support each other.  Our voices matter, and they need to be heard.  But, men, we desperately need you here.  We have to have good men stepping up the plate and speaking out against sexual abuse.  We have to have men who are willing to take a stand against pornography and men's clubs.  We have to have men who will insist that women are equal to men and in no way lesser.  We have to have men who will stand up next to these women and say "NOT ME".  "I will never treat a woman like she is an object for my pleasure."  "I will never harm a child for my own gain."  "I will never condone this behavior by any of my fellow men."  "I won't feed into a pornography culture that is creating a bleak future for our boys and our girls."  Men, please start a "NOT ME" movement to remind us all that there are really good men in this world and to remind the men who have fallen that there is a better way to live.  The abusers of this world are broken.  They need you too.  They need to you model a sexually pure life.  They need the love of Jesus that can transform them.  And, Church, we have so much work to do in healing what has happened and continues to happen in our culture.  We have to realize that our buildings are full of people who have experienced this sickness from both sides, and we have to talk about the things that are hard to talk about.  And we have to STAND UP FOR THE OPPRESSED.  It is our mission.  It is our calling.  We can't be silent about this issue.  Be the Daniel for all the Susannas.  Be the Daniel.  BE THE DANIEL.  Otherwise the innocent will continue to fall. 

This Little Light of Mine

 

    Has anyone else been struggling to deal with the world around us?  It seems like every day there is another news story.  Sacred spaces are under vicious attack.  Our churches and schools are being pillaged by men with absurd weapons.  Sexual abuse runs rampant.  Pornography is stealing our boys and tainting our society.  Sex trafficking is occurring in our communities, and we are afraid to let our daughters out of our sight.  Every time I see a news story, another victim - another aggressor in desperate need of help.  And every time another woman (or man) says "Me Too" it feels like a punch in the gut.  Our celebrities are criminals, drunk on power and lacking in decency.  And their victims could fill stadiums.  The distortion of God's plan is glaring and obvious, and the world keeps spinning out of control.  And it sure seems like the people with the power to make changes have no intent to do so.  So what are we to do?  Where do we go from here?
     This morning I got to spend some time with 4-7 year olds.  I was teaching children's church, and we were singing songs from the "praise box".  This little box has manipulatives that go with each set of songs.  Well, it was time to get out the little flashlights.  The kids love them.  So we turned them on and started singing "This Little Light of Mine".  We were barely into the song when one little one asked if we could turn out the lights.  "Sure!", I said, so they turned them out.  It was immediately shocking to me how even in the light of day, turning out the lights made the little flashlights shine so much more brightly.  They were beautiful in the semi-darkness, bringing joy to the children and praise to the Lord.  And in that moment I knew the answer to the angst and pain that surrounds me.  In the darkness the light shines even brighter.  You see, darkness cannot block out light.  You cannot carry darkness into a fully lit space and drown out the light.  However, you can take even a small light into a darkened space and break through the darkness.  The reverse will never be true.  One is more powerful than the other.  They are not equal forces.  And light overpowers darkness every time.  The only way darkness can win the day is if the source of the light stops working or the light separates itself from the source.  We have a choice to make every day in the darkness.  We can let the darkness so overwhelm us that we turn off our light and give up.  Or we can let the darkness so motivate us that our light shines ever brighter, bringing stark and sudden contrast to the darkness.  And when light is held up to the darkness, what lurks in the darkness is exposed.  Exposure takes away power.  Sin and evil thrive in the darkness.  But in the exposure of light, they cannot stand.  We have the power of an endless source of light.  His name is Jesus. We just have to tap into him.  Darkness gives us an opportunity to shine more brightly than ever before.  But we cannot be afraid.  If we live in fear, we are just rolling in the dark.  So we shine the light, we expose the darkness, and we use all our energy to turn the darkness into light in our homes, our communities, our nation, our world.  We have the power.  We just have to use it.  I can't light up the entire world, but I can light up my little corner of it.  And you can light up yours.  And maybe if we just keep shining we can all turn the world upside down.