Have you ever been in a conversation with a group of people and felt a little lost? Maybe you didn’t know much about the topic being batted around or maybe you were daydreaming or maybe half of the people were talking way over your head. Hours or even days later, something clicks, and it all makes sense. You get it! We might say that the lightbulb came on and what had not been clear became evident. Whew! What a relief it is to see what others have been seeing!
We all know what is said about hindsight. A little introspective reflection never hurt a one of us. What can be painful, however, is when what comes clearly into focus is something we regret saying or doing that can’t be unsaid or undone. Or what dawns on us in the clean light of an uninterrupted morning is a character flaw that has wreaked havoc all over our life for many years. Or the realization that surfaces shows us plainly that we have brought upon ourselves more than half of wounds we harbor. And the thing about the lightbulb coming on and enabling us to see clearly is that it’s next to impossible to unsee what’s been revealed. Sometimes it’s anything but a relief to see what others have been seeing!
But where would we be without light, without revelation, without hindsight, and without tomorrow? Yes, tomorrow, because, of course, Scarlett is spot on: tomorrow is another day. At least we hope. And that means there’s possibility yet to unfold, learning to incorporate, amends to attempt to make, and a relatively fresh slate upon which to write our life’s story. So, maybe we’ve come to see some yucky stuff about ourselves and maybe we’ve finally caught on to how detrimental an unbridled tongue can be and maybe we’ve realized that the minutes in a day are way too precious to squander them by bobbing in cesspools of negative energy. When the lightbulb comes on, and we can’t unsee what we’ve seen about ourselves, we can promise ourselves that we won’t be seeing the same stuff in a year from now or a month from now or tomorrow.
In his book How to Be Here, Rob Bell describes staring at the computer screen feeling compelled to write something but seeing only a taunting blinking line. He says, “There’s a reason it’s called a cursor. We all have a blinking line. Your blinking line is whatever sits in front of you waiting to be brought into existence. It’s the book or day or job or business or family or mission or class or plan or cause or meeting or task or project or challenge or phone call or life that is waiting for you to bring it into being.” Do we get it? Whew! What a relief!
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