David Earl Woodbury
No 19 Changing Lives through Dancing
Friday, May 9, 2014
Where’s Your Light?
Today I was using my Swiss Army Knife that I bought in Paris over 10 years ago. It is red, small, useful, and I use it often. As I was using it, I touched the emblem on the side and a light shone from the end. It was the flashlight feature! After all these years, I had never seen that light, never pushed the button, never noticed the light, never discovered what I had in my hands all the time.
Ever have the lights go out and you can’t find a flashlight (I just found mine in my top drawer!), can’t find candles or matches, and it’s dark inside and you can’t see a thing. Then, in a moment, someone pulls out their phone and turns on the flashlight feature and you find your torch in your own top drawer, hidden by the darkness.
What do we use for our lights? Go to Disneyland and look out at the crowd before the fireworks and you see an ocean of bright blue phone screens. Or go to the theater and everyone is using their torch feature from their phones to light their path. I’ve walked home using my phone to guide my feet, and who knew 10 years ago that our mobile phones would light up the night!
Often our light goes out and we have the ability to illuminate our way and guide others, and we don’t know how to turn the light on. We don’t know that we have a light and we don’t know where it is. Just like my Swiss knife, it was in my hands for a decade, and it still worked!
It took Edison 10,000 tries to find what worked for the light bulb. He was asked if he became discouraged and he responded that he knew eventually he would run out of things that did not work! He had vision and persistence. Also, he had to have the dream of how to power the light that he created and to deliver that power to people to use and then have lamps that used the new bulbs.
Light is available to us all if we can just remember how to turn it on and if we are plugged into the source of power that makes the light glow. All of us have light if we will just find out how let it shine and how to keep our batteries charged! There is a lot of darkness out there, yet we can be a light to others and brighten the day!
Thank You,
David Earl Woodbury
Next Week: International Dance Festival 2014!