Follow the Light

Try this: make a tight fist with one hand and try to force it open with the other. When I did, I was surprised by how automatically my fist clamped even tighter, resisting the fingers of my other hand. Then, following the instructions of this exercise, I let go and cradled the fist in my other hand. Before my palm was all the way under my fist, it softened, all on its own.  

“I can keep that fist shut,” I told myself as I went through the steps a second time. And for a while, using strong muscle force and determination, I did.

But the point of the exercise was not to see how strong my hands were. The point was to notice the autonomic response of a fist to force versus tenderness.

With force, both hands were tense and tight in opposition. When I cradled my fist, the warmth of my supporting palm and the gentleness of its touch simply invited my fist to respond. Both hands relaxed as they nested together, both now in the cradling position as if they together had formed a nest to hold a fragile egg.

A clenched fist is an apt metaphor for a lot of what’s going on in the world lately. If you dare to watch a newscast you could easily believe we exist in a sea of clenched fists.

That simple exercise brought me back to a conviction I’ve long held—mentally, at least— but often find hard to sustain: one powerful way we can be present to our world’s pain is with tenderness. When I read about some cruelty or act of violence, my go-to emotion is anger. Perhaps the anger is easier to feel than the grief and tenderness it hides.

I’m not suggesting that anger is always inappropriate. It fuels the fire of positive action if you don’t melt down into a helpless teary heap. I think of the relaxing fist as a sensory, physical embodiment of a more useful response once anger has been felt and expressed.

My intake of national and international news consists of a quick scroll through headlines, the minimum necessary to stay informed. A deeper dive brings on feelings of anxiety, fear and dread of all that is beyond my power to influence. Overwhelm is the standard state of being these days, and after a while it becomes exhausting. I flirt with despair, and that’s not exactly helpful.

This automatic, unconscious unclenching of a fist demonstrates how I can do better to stop resisting and railing against those things I can’t change, and focus on cultivating tenderness and sharing it with others. I can, with effort, continue to move toward the light.

Being tender in the midst of a brutal world sounds dangerous. Of course we need to be careful not to show too much tenderness to those who would harm us. But being tender toward an adversary can also be a sign of strength; strength to overcome the reaction of fearful defensiveness, the tug-of-war fist that closes out all light.

I can’t help it when my body clenches like a fist when I hear someone ranting negatively about a topic dear to my heart. At government-sponsored meetings my voice quavers in a way it never does when I give a talk to a friendly audience or sing in public. It quavers due to fear. And I feel imaginary daggers threatening me from people’s eyes.

These days, it’s more than daggers. People now carry firearms just about everywhere, and the anger of opposing values is often palpable in a public hearing room. I have been verbally attacked, my sleeve grabbed and my face yelled into by people who disagreed with me. When I worked for the Forest Service, I had to deal with angry men who had warmed up at the local bar before showing up to heckle and disrupt. My body was a clenched fist of fear that I worked to suppress, and I came home drained.

Those memories stay, but I want to believe we are capable of carrying on in a gentle but determined way in spite of them. Otherwise, what progress do we make?

Under the fear and anger, the cradling hand waits, ready to serve. It shows up when someone appearing to be one of those hecklers holds a door open and invites us to go in first. “Thank you” with a smile is the appropriate response, and we both leave the encounter with open hands.

We can muster an innate courage when the occasion arises. Interviews with those who have risked their lives to save others show them shrugging off the heroism label, saying they just did what was needed, something anyone would do. They acted as spontaneously as a cradled fist, not caring if the person they pulled from danger voted for the same candidate they did.

Showing softness in the face of anger, rather than allowing a natural defensiveness to shoot back, is not easy. And it doesn’t always work—if the opponent is either half drunk or being egged on by buddies, there’s probably no point in putting yourself out there. But sometimes, when I simply listen and keep my opinions to myself, I can feel fists unclenching—theirs and mine. All any of us wants is to be heard.

One thing I have learned about people, whether family members or strangers, is that I have to connect on terms that work for them. Years ago, I realized that I could only converse with my mother when I put my reactive child-self aside. Just listen, be supportive and sympathetic. Pretend she’s an angry drunk at a meeting.

My mom finally ceased being angry at the world when she entered dementia after a stroke. She forgot a lifetime of missed opportunities, disappointments and regrets, and was happy as a toddler when the nice lady—me—brought her chocolate. She had no idea who I was, which came as a relief.

My father and I became closer over a period of years as we exchanged letters. I kept them all (they still carry a whiff of cigarette smoke). He sent me a framed goodbye note that was delivered after he died. He had gotten sober and died without regrets.

My mother let go of her clenched fist only after her mind left her. My father let go of his with a gentleness I had not known when I was young. Both of them live within me, along with the choice to keep the fist clenched or to allow it to open, revealing a fragile egg within that holds the light I seek.

In this season of slowly increasing light, I hope to cradle the anger, fear and despair that dwells within, so it can offer light to those around me. It won’t change world events, but it might soften another heart or two, and that way the light can be passed on. It’s the starlight we are made of, after all.