Have you paid your light bill?

It caught my ear during our October trip to Wisconsin. My Mother-in-law mentioned the arrival of the light bill. My family used the same phrase and I hadn't heard it in years.

My parents not only referred to the electric utility bill as the light bill, Mother insisted that it must be paid, in person, at the electric company. In recent years I had come to think this was due more to my Mother's need for company. But what that particular bill meant is, I think, deeper than that. And so should it be for all of us.

To understand the significance of a utility bill and the power that most of us take for granted, you have to consider the dark years early in the last century. Cities had electricity, but electric wires hadn't reached scattered farm homes even in the 20s. After the sun went down, light came from kerosene lamps and lanterns that had to be filled, cleaned, tended. They were dirty. Their light wasn't much good either. Much of the world still lives that way.

In 1928 those electric poles finally began to march out onto the rolling landscape of north western Wisconsin country. In the spring of 1929 my grandparents elected to remodel the old farm, putting electricity in the house and the barn. “The light,” my Father recalled to me some seventy years later, “changed life on the farm. We went from dark isolation to true illumination. We could milk the cows without fear of a cow kicking over a kerosene lantern and burning down the barn. The light in the kitchen and dining room were a beacon to come in from chores in the cold.”

The lights, Dad said, could be seen all the way from Hwy C, his weekend drop off point for his ride home from boarding for high school in town. He would follow the lights of home up the two mile hill. To anyone passing by, it represented the Johnson hospitality; assistance that was always given. Then the depression hit.

Grandpa's money in the bank was frozen. The milk checks couldn't be cashed. The banker visited the farm to collect the money spent on the remodeling. Meeting my grandparents and seeing the tidy, newly remodeled place, he told them to keep the cows and pay the bank when they could. Things didn't get better. It cost more to feed and milk the cows than the milk could be sold for. The only money coming in was egg money from the chickens. By 1931, conditions on the farm, as across the nation, were so dire that the Johnson's reluctantly turned the lights off to help save the farm.

Darkness descended again. Dad's walk from Hwy C to the farm was pitch black unless the moon was out. He noted that once that happened, even the stray people stopping by their door asking to work for anything to hold body and soul together, dropped off too. But any who found their way were not turned away.

If the electricity you take for granted were turned off; hair dryers, coffee pots, Ipods, the computer like the one on which I write this...would you feel poorer? Probably. But it is just stuff. Loosing the light, though, changes the fundamental environment.

We're facing a time when the darkness confronting us seems greater than at any time since they turned the lights off on the Johnson farm. Somehow I doubt that many bankers are going to visit any of us and tell us to do the best we can and pay them when we can. Maybe they should. It would be humanity and democracy at it's best – people in relationship to people, instead of inhuman accounting columns and rampant capitalism.

Light, once experienced, makes the darkness that follows it unimaginably worse.

But there is a darkness greater than the physical that confronts us all now. It is fear, loss of hope and human heart to meet the need. It is a lurking bankruptcy of spirit that threatens to deplete our natural generosity; a lack that might be what got us into this in the first place. It's a failure to believe that there is a spirit that watches over us and expects – demands – that we look beyond ourselves and our things; that we make deposits to keep our personal light bill paid up, to illuminate the darkness for others as well as ourselves.

Have you paid your light bill?

©2008 Jan Johnson Wondra

#7

Home is more than four walls and a roof.

The salt of life was poured over me last week. It was a travel week to northwestern Wisconsin. This is where I'm from. Garrison Keillor country; home of jello salads, hot dishes and lutefisk suppers. Where people still speak with Scandinavian accents and don't know it, but you love 'em for it. There, people learn early to sprinkle their words with dry humor. I don't think my Grandpa Ausen ever walked out the door without the twinkling admonition “Don't take any wooden nickels now!” This is where wealth, by and large, isn't measured in bank accounts or spine-chilling Wall Street news, but in family, friends, and land.

This time of year, the sky is most reliably blue and the oak savannas are deep rust against the overgrown native grasses that are now mostly unfarmed. It is, I think, home.

I didn't go there for a warm family reunion, although, in the end, I got that too. I went to work on clearing out my Mother's country house. Mom died in August. She and Dad retired there and called it home for 27 years. Before them, my grandparents did the same for some 32 years. They were preceded at the place, a former parsonage, by a succession of strong Norwegian pastors and their families stretching back to when it was built sometime in the 1880's.

It is grueling to clean out an old house; more so the home of someone who never threw away a piece of string, an old coat or even the wax paper from cereal boxes because it made such great pan liners for cinnamon rolls. (But that's another story.) My brothers and sister and I were together and we did some crying and a lot of laughing and shaking our heads as we dragged unsalvegables to a big dumpster out front by the drive. Other families would find incomprehensible two items we saved back; a pair of Dad's worn and much-patched blue overalls and Mom's infamous patch coat.

It's a patch coat because no matter how many nice coats we gave her, Mom kept re-patching this ancient beige wool coat and wore it to bring in the wood or get the mail. “It's still good,” our depression-era Mother would say with a defiant lift of her chin. “And it's warm.” Home is where you can't stop your Mother from going outside looking like the penniless Baby Doe hunkered down at the Matchless Mine, I guess. Or maybe it's where you plant both the overalls and the coat and fully expect that an overall-coat tree will bloom in the spring.

I've pondered the question of home for some years now. Is home a place you're from? Or a place you seek?

For my parents, the embroidered picture by their 1880s pot-bellied stove told the story, “Home is where the hearth is,” it read. For me, the concept of home has been relative. The ebb and flow of life has seen me move from the family farm to college, to Germany, to a succession of apartments and homes from Minneapolis to Denver to Milwaukee back to Denver. “Home” is any four walls that enclose the right person,” says Helen Rowland.

Yes, and...I believe it is also the combination of people, experiences and a place that feed your body, your mind and your soul. Especially your soul.
This morning, back again at my computer, I wonder again if all of us don't need to find home within our selves first? It is, after all, the meeting point of where we have been and where we are going; an eternal place that might be full of light, or very dark indeed!

©2008

#4

The lose of light can be profound.

I received a business email last Friday headed by a single word. Darkness.

The meaning was obvious, given the historic financial crisis we lived through last week. There is so much darkness and gloom that many people are having a hard time holding up their heads. This morning I got word of the loss of a significant piece of contract writing business because of the financial situation. I understand the decision. It would be easy for me to see the world darkly right now. I'd have every right to. I have a son in college and a daughter headed that way, a mortgage, the typical bills....responsibilities. I like this client. I sacrificed much over this past year for this particular client. I gave up family time, wrote copy while my daughter was in major surgery, postponed leaving for a family wedding, came back early, turned down other contract work to focus on them, even worried over it while at my Mother's funeral two months ago.

If my life were only about materials things, I would indeed see the world darkly right now. But darkness can be an illusion. There are things to learn in utter darkness. Helen Keller knew about true darkness and light: “ I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden,” she said. “I can see a God-made world, not a man-made world.”

I am blessed that my life has included trips to far-away seashores; Hawaii, the Pacific coast of Mexico, the Carri bean and – the most exotic – Tahiti. At sea level, the sun goes down the way it seems to set over our mountains. Rapidly. Completely. One minute you are in long, warm rays of sunshine, the next plunged into chill shadows. In Tahiti, on Moorea, the island is so far away from anything approaching a major city that you go from light to nearly utter darkness within a minute. Walking back from dinner one night we were left stumbling down a gravel road in utter blackness, our tiny flashlights making not a dent in the thick darkness. Darkness so profound, that we could not differenciate between the shape of the land mass and the horizon. Memory told us they were there.

When daylight came, it was as if the night had never happened. Our tropical paradise was flooded with otherworldly light and lush color. It was simply time for the light, just as darkness would return at its appointed hour.

I cannot say that I will spend every day fully in the light of hope, but I can say that I will try my best to stay out of the shadows, to focus on the light and to see what I'm intended to see in the darkness. I think that that is the best that any of us can do. And if, by chance we happen to stumble in the dark on a bit of rock at our feet, we need to pick it up. If we're lucky, it will be a chunk of salt! As far as I know salt is the only rock on earth that we can eat. And as Nelson Mandela said, “Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.”

#3

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Light is the beginning.

It rained earlier that afternoon in Wisconsin country. I was three-and-a-half-years-old. When the storm passed, Mother got us ready to go shopping in town. Dressed in my little white sun dress, blond hair combed and beribboned, “best” sandals strapped to my feet, I was allowed outside with a stern admonition to “stay clean” while Mother got my baby brother ready.

I headed for the upper gravel driveway above our sloping back yard. A delightful mud puddle had formed beneath a giant oak tree. I remember standing in that puddle, that oozy mud squishing splendidly between my toes, gazing up into the canopy high above me. Beams of sunlight shown down through the branches and rain drops sparkled like millions of diamonds stuck to the leaves.

It was a numinous moment; a child's heaven. By the time my Mother found me, I was dripping wet, covered in that splendid mud and had lost my hair ribbons. I've been in awe of light ever since.

Light came first. Genesis 1:3 says God pronounced “Let there be light.” Science's big bang theory puts a lot of light out there too. Regardless of whether you lean toward the Biblical version or the big bang (I accept both), they begin basically with the same thing. Light is life.

When my now-grown son was a small boy, he and I delighted in pointing out “God Sky” to each other. You've seen it; that wonderful phenomena in which rays of the western sun blaze through dark roiling clouds after storms, or beam over the distant mountain peaks just at sunset, delivering a celestial blessing across the landscape. “God Sky” became our shared wonder. The light that lingers on the peaks stays longer, glows richer, becomes other-worldly, the higher you are. Which may account for the fondness he has for the high places.

The light of a single match can be seen in absolute darkness at a great distance. Light as a metaphor for hope, authenticity, knowledge, goodness and love is as old as recorded history. When things are bleak and we don't know what to do, we talk about being “in the dark.” When the rest of the crowd is following each others tails, we admire someone “living by their own lights.” When we see two people in love, we say that we can see “the light of love” shining in their eyes.

“An age is called 'dark,' not because the light fails to shine but because people refuse to see it,” noted James Michener. The world seems to be in need of more light right now. Maybe some more salt too. I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit that I could use more light shining on me this fall, but that would miss the point. Instead of taking it in and keeping it, the world need us to be reflecting light into the world. It's as if by doing so we become both a battery and a mirror; re-energized, we shine hope and light and love on others. I don't necessarily write biblically. But you might want to read Matthew 5:13-16. It's an astounding message! “You are the salt of the earth,” it says. “You are the light of the world!” Reflect on that – and then let it shine.

©2008 Jan Johnson Wondra

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# 2

Monday, September 22, 2008


Autumn is a beginning, not an end.

I've always celebrated autumn, which begins today, as the beginning of my new year. To do so has perhaps made me a throwback....the ancients took harvest as the signal of a new year too.

As nature winds down, I gain energy. As the natural light retreats I find it necessary to add new flavor to my life. I organize my desk. Review and write new goals. Assess my volunteer activities. Make lists. Clean closets. I'm not the only one. There has to be a reason that this time becomes hectic throughout society. School starts. Every club seems to hold an organizational meeting. The social season swings into action. The markets shift from the August lull, often giving us an October surprise. This year we got a September one. For many, it was salt rubbed into open wounds.

What is it about salt?

Literature and life are full of references to salt. Job says in the Bible ;“Can that which is unsavory be eaten without salt? Or is there any taste in the white of an egg?” James Beard asked simply, "Where would we be without salt?"

Many of us choose to think of salt as the flavor that we add to our own lives, while others think of salt as the experiences which are liberally sprinkled upon us as we age. William Shakespeare asked “Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man.”

If you follow that logic, all of life becomes salt. This morning I pondered this, sitting for a while on my back deck in the shifting light, as a breeze sounded the wind chines and ruffled the still-green leaves. I have had cause this year to pause and reflect on the interplay of light and salt in my life. What does it mean to be “worth your salt?” It's an odd phrase, spoken by the likes of Mark Twain, Andrew Jackson, Tallulah Bankhead and Teddy Roosevelt, to name a few. I am hopeful that being worth my salt means that not only have I gained wisdom and insight from what life has brought me(both the good and the not-so-good), but that I am getting better at how I handle what life throws at me. Certainly I've gained strength.

This year, instead of directing all my energy outward, I am open, holding my breath as the hush that is fall descends. I choose to apply my liberally sprinkled salt to reflect, just a little, some of the light that has shown on me as well. Buddha said “Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed.”



©2008 this and preceding blog

#1

Monday, September 15, 2008

Life is short.

Much of it goes by while we're not paying attention.

Before we know it, it's gone and with it the chance to become the authentic person we are meant to be. An authentic person adds to the world around them by fulfilling that which she was put here to do; adding substance, light and love. This blog is meant to give flavor, help identify and preserve the authentic in each of us and add light to life in the 21^st century.

The name of this blog was chosen quite deliberately. In ancient days, salt and light were basic elements of survival. Salt did not just give food flavor, it was the primary method of food preservation. If you couldn't mine for -- or trade for -- enough salt, you couldn't preserve enough food against the winter months. Your family would face starvation. Salt was so important that the fables of many ancient cultures include folk tales about salt.

A favorite Eastern European folk tale of my daughter (who was born in Pskov, Russia and brought home to America at age three) is the tale Salt Is Sweeter Than Gold, in which a dying king wants to find out how much his three daughters love him so he knows how to divide his kingdom. His youngest daughter tells him that she “loves him more than salt,” which the proud king considered to be an insulting answer. The king banishes her and decides to throw a banquet to celebrate giving the kingdom to his two remaining daughters. A terrible storm washes away all the salt in the kingdom, the food spoils and the people are hungry. Soon, the importance of the princess's declaration and the gift she brings, means the survival of the kingdom and demonstrates the depth of her love to her father.

Where is your salt? What flavor do you find in the world...and what do you add?

Just as salt meant food, light -- fire -- was survival against the dark unknown. The beasts of the great forests of the world were voracious. Light kept the wolves at bay. Light kept the terrors of the night, some real, some imagined outside the walls of the castle, or the hovel. Light meant life.

What is the source of your light? Does it emanate from something temporal? Or is it eternal? Do you reflect it onward or hide it away?

I hope you return to Salt, Light & Life again, as I explore these questions....the answers you and I uncover together, I believe, can add all three to the world.