Life Worth Living.

Image © by Brian E. Faulkner

​Back in the 1950s, my grandmother watched Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s Life Worth Living television program religiously.  In fact, nothing would stand in her way -- except possibly the Boston Red Sox. Had a game been on at the same time, the good bishop may have been out of luck.  Sheen was a pioneering radio and TV broadcaster, perhaps the earliest true televangelist, and so great was his popularity (and preaching skill) that he won two national Emmy Awards during his career.  Up to 30-million viewers tuned in each week to hear him ad lib his sermon.  He had a wonderful voice and an assuring manner, and although born in Illinois, sometimes revealed a hint of Irish brogue (at least to my ears). 

That would have been the clincher for my grandmother, who was born every inch a Doyle. 

In time, Sheen was named an archbishop of the Catholic Church and eventually put in line to become a saint.  My grandmother knew none of this, of course, but she considered the bishop she invited into her living room every Tuesday evening at eight o’clock on a par with John F. Kennedy (who could do no wrong) and Carl Yastrzemski, Boston’s left fielder and RBI king over 23 years with the Sox.

For some reason I associate the song If Everyone Lit Just One Little Candle, What a Bright World This Would Be with Bishop Sheen’s program.  It was a hit by Perry Como back then, so the song and Sheen likely had no real connection except in my mind.  What I recall more clearly, however, is an image of a lone candle lighting the show’s open.

The word light appears 272 times in the King James Bible and infuses Holy Scripture with its presence: Jesus is the light of the world; The lord is my light and salvation, etc.  I was reminded of these truths anew this late winter morning when I noticed well over a dozen turtles sunning themselves on two logs in the pond in back of my house, the big ones on the big log, the small ones lined up helter-skelter on the smaller log.  They had pulled themselves from the cold muck at the bottom of the pond and risen into the light, attracted by the warming sun.   This may not be as poetic as Bishop Sheen’s words would have been, but the analogy works for me!

A luminary of a different sort, J.K. Rowling, wrote in one of her Harry Potter books that “We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.”  Do we rise to the surface following the “light of a star” (per Bishop Sheen) or are we content to lie in darkness, as Nietzsche wrote in comparing man’s struggle toward the Divine with a tree:  “The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep.”? 

It’s a lot easier for most of us (certainly me) to remain dozing deep within our selves than it is to allow the Divine to lead the way -- in contrast to the turtles lined up on their logs that clearly have no more choice in rising toward the sun than they have in breathing.   I may have gotten Bishop Sheen mixed up with Perry Como’s hit song way back in my mind, but there is truth to be had in linking the two, because when we give way to the illumination of that One Little Candle, it leads us out of our self-imposed darkness and into the Light. 
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Where life ... we learn in time ... is really worth living.

(written 2-28-16)

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