What Is a Human Lighthouse?
Some years ago, I wrote my coming-of-age journey of getting lost in the gaps of the foster care system and my long, desperate search for my biological family. I had intended it to be a family history that future generations would read one day. But I learned—pretty quickly— that I had a written a more universal story—one of family, faith, fortitude and forgiveness that touches all of our lives. And so my book, A Chance in the World, became an invitation for others all across the world to share their stories with me. It has been a one of the great Blessings of my life.
When you are on the receiving end of so many human stories, you come to see the true essence of humanity. You understand the joys and regrets people have, the secrets they carry, and the dreams they are trying to fulfill. You witness sacrifice you can barely describe and the perseverance of the human spirit. Human stories connect us because they let us know that we are not alone—in our pain or our suffering. But human stories do something else, too. They provide a lighthouse to help us navigate life’s storms and uncertainties and shows us the way past polarization to find our more common story.
The lighthouse is a powerful metaphor for how we might accomplish this. As a physical structure, we no longer have a need for lighthouses to help us navigate the sea. Technology does that for us now. Yet there are nearly 23,000 of them across the world and there has been an ongoing effort to preserve them. The reason lighthouses endure is because they remind us how we can best navigate humanity, especially in times of difficulty and uncertainty. The lighthouse is selfless and steadfast, resilient and noble, protective and humble. It does not judge us for being lost or uncertain. It is not concerned with our politics, where we were raised or how much money we have. The only thing that matters to the lighthouse is our humanity because it knows that we all have a common story.
We remember the most important people in our life—those human lighthouses—because they embodied all the best attributes of the physical structure.
A human lighthouse could have been an elementary school teacher, a high school coach, a supportive colleague, an understanding priest or pastor, or a great boss. Or it could have been a kind stranger who offered up a word of encouragement or comfort in a challenging time. These people exist in our memory because we know that the trajectory of our lives have been forever altered because of them.
Each day presents an opportunity for each of us to be a lighthouse for another. And that opportunity is all around us, as we go about our everyday lives. Heroism is not the province of the wealthy or the well-known but available to every single one of us. We don’t have to be perfect. Our life experiences, with all its ups and downs and losses and loves, is sufficient. Just as importantly, each day gives us a chance to find a human lighthouse for ourselves, someone whose story connects to our own. They need not look like us or think the way we do.
The stories I have encountered have given me hope that we can summon the will to move past our differences to find our more common story. All we need is each other and to remember the eternal language of the lighthouse: Together we can find a way.
