This won’t be my typical blog about healing and overcoming colitis. Rather, I want to take a moment to acknowledge, or rather recognize, who I call the Lighthouse Keepers on this planet.

Who are the Lighthouse Keepers? For me, they are the people who exist in life to bring bright light, joy, comfort whenever they can, wherever they can, however they can. The lighthouse keepers can be lone souls, on the fringes, making a few interactions, yet providing an occasional haven to those in need. Or they are in the midst of life while seemingly alone. They wear the garb of normalcy; they have jobs, friends and families, though the connections are not as deep and meaningful. Somehow, they maintain their balance and integrity in the world.

The Lighthouse at Eddystone, 1846, Anton Melbye - Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

In this latter category, I think of my friend Sabine here in Leipzig. I see her on occasion, for a few hours at a time. In one or two hours, just seeing her I feel nourished, and I retrieve a sense of community when I am near her. The moments together feel like few, but we have our responsibilities. She has her wider circle of friends and her family while I have my solitude, my writing. My music and website. Of course, I have family, but we live in different countries.

Oftentimes I feel we Lighthouse Keepers must stay apart to keep shining. We are not meant to light up each other’s life, but the patches of darkness along the moving shores of existence. We hold our hearts full of compassion, though it is a struggle, especially in the last two years. Many of us, when we have met, we feel baffled by the inhumanity, the lies, the ‘experts’ and the narrative so full of plot holes yet for those others we want to protect or guide, they cannot see. In my recent discussion with Sabine, she with her tea, me with my wine, we both remembered how back in 2020 when the narrative was first unfolding, how we chuckled at what we regarded as the ridiculous and obvious. Meanwhile, others, friends, family members, neighbours, lived shut up in themselves, paralyzed by fear, suspicious of everyone. I suggested that maybe there is intelligence of the heart, an intuition that must go beyond the mind. For the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), there are reasons of the heart the mind cannot understand.

We struggle, the Lighthouse Keepers. It is natural. We have questions and the people we ask these questions to, those who willingly have gone along with everything, they decline to answer, to speculate with us as if speculation itself was a crime. We have our critical questions, we have our legitimate concerns, but we are either insulted or ignored for inviting discernment. In previous years of controversies, debate was welcome. These days, we are not allowed to lean into wonder, let alone voice a polite and inquiring critique. With this in mind, we presently inhabit the borders of a society where obedience has replaced true intelligence while the appearance of virtue, namely participating in an experiment, uninformed, has relegated good deeds and taking a stand to a temporary dust bin. With this in mind, we sometimes must remain mute and pray and ask for guidance and love.

But I suppose it is not for the lighthouse keeper to command and pilot the ships they want to protect.

We battle with ego as well. We wonder if we truly know what we know. Our convictions guide us, our compassion like a compass lies in the unprovable soul. It has been difficult for us. Meanwhile, we go back and forth between solitude and society, confused about our place in the world. I know this has been my situation as well as my mother’s. We are thousands of kilometers apart and keep in contact via Skype technology. She keeps reminding me we are here in this world to observe, to be kind, to love, to feel compassion. We must fight cruel when we experience cruelty. Both of us in the last two years have tried to become involved and to be active in spreading awareness. No dice. We must submit that the universe has placed us on our shorelines, and there we must wait and maintain our beacons, our will to keep shining.

Павел Петрович Бажов в 1911 году, Pavel Petrovich Bazhov in 1911

How do we survive? We survive because of God’s grace, the grace of invisible angels and miraculous helpers, and of course, the momentary boosts of energy that waft our way mysteriously. When I think of the past year, unemployed, looking for work, finishing a novel I had been struggling to complete, I know it could have been worse. I consider the life of the Russian writer, Pavel Petrovich Bazhov (1879-1950).

Bazhov was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party at the time of the Russian Revolution. In 1918, he joined the Communist Party. However, his old ties came back to haunt him during the Purges in the 1930s. Even after denying his role as a Socialist Revolutionary, he still struggled and while working as an editor and censor, he could not fully gain the trust or approval of the Communist Party.

When a controversial book he edited was removed from circulation and Bazhov fired from his publishing position, he became an ‘enemy of the people’. Bazhov was soon summoned to the NKVD (Нарóдный комиссариáт внýтренних дел – People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs – the Gestapo of Stalinist Russia). In preparation, he packed a suitcase and went off to their office. In the mix and midst of the busy bureaucratic environment, Bazhov was forgotten in the bustle of the corridor and so, seeing an opportunity, slinked out, slid home and lived in exile in his own apartment for a year. He and his wife did not once leave the building, receiving support from her sister for food and rent.

During this time, he wrote his most famous folklore stories, ‘The Stone Flower’ and ‘The Mountain Master’, now considered classics of Russian literature.

Imagine living in exile in your own country while in your own home, unable to walk out the front door. I have been blessed in that I can take evening walks. I can still go to the grocery store, though, this is all.

Even when outside, out and about, I feel my heart burst with sadness. All these people that went along to get along, rolling up their sleeves to gain back their freedom. The cage doors are still there, locked, unmoving, and the people are still complacent. I think of a man I heard about. He held out so long not to take the experimental procedure. Up to that point, he had been considered recovered (Genessen) in Germany. Caving to peer pressure, he got the first dose and yet, he still goes to work wearing a mask, he still needs a test, even with the medical procedure submitted to. He wanted his freedom; this was the reason for the submission. What freedom, I wonder?

Some days, I feel I have done nothing, offered nothing. Maybe just being here is enough. I don’t know. Last year, I had a good job as an English trainer. I loved the people I worked with, the people I had around me. This is what I could give. Daily, I worked hard to make the lives of my students better. I understand why it was all taken from me. A part of me feels appreciation for that time. Another part grieves still. Though in Francis Weller’s book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, the author suggests that grief is a form of praise. What we grieve for is what mattered to us most, what we appreciated.

As a Lighthouse Keeper, wherever we are, I realize, we must submit to God/the Universe in these difficult times. When it is time, we will find our communities but until then, we must shine.

Whenever we can, wherever we can, however we can.

In Recognition of the Lighthouse Keepers

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