Shattered Light: A Metaphor For Now

Though the photo I posted here may be construed by some as political, this piece won’t be. It’s not that I don’t care about our political situation. I do care, very much. It’s just that today, I’ve been consumed with thinking about something else. A metaphor, you might say: It’s the globe-shaped light fixture that had been hanging for a dozen years over the dining room table of my childhood home.

It was 1982. I was watching the Mad Max-inspired video for “I Got Lucky” by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers on MTV. I was twenty-two at the time. Midway through the video, I turned my head to look at the light fixture. I can’t explain why I suddenly looked over at it, except to say that something seemed to have called out to me.?Peter, look at the light. Look now!?At that exact moment, the light crashed onto the table and shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

That same night, I had a dream, a nightmare, in which my dad was having a heart attack as I held him in my arms. He was in pain, he was crying, wetting my chest with his tears. I called out for help. Then I woke up, breathless in the night, my own heart nearly exploding. In the morning, I visited my dad in the hospital. He’d begun another round of chemotherapy. Almost as soon as I arrived, he grabbed my hand. “Pete,” he said. “I’m so afraid!”

I took my dad in my arms, and he began to shake. He howled in pain. His tears were wetting my T-shirt, just as they were in my dream, and his thin frame shuddered in my grasp. He clutched at his chest, and I could hear myself screaming, “My father is dying! Somebody help! Somebody help me!”

The nurses came running. I stood back, watching as they worked. But my mind was elsewhere. I couldn’t stop thinking about that light fixture. Out of nowhere, it just fell. Broken into thousands of tiny pieces. It had been hanging above our dining room table for so long. There was zero chance of it falling. None whatsoever —until it did. My dad died soon afterward.

That light, now shattered, symbolized the stability and safety that I took for granted. A simple yet integral part of my home, it represented the order and constancy in my life. When it fell, it shattered not just physically but metaphorically, reflecting how swiftly and unexpectedly stability can be destroyed. Yesterday evening, I watched a video of a keffiyeh-clad mob at Union Station in Washington, D.C. In lock-step with Hamas, that mob raised the Palestinian flag and gleefully burned the American flag.?

As I watched and listened, I couldn’t help but think about that shattered light.

You might think that the American flag is unimportant. You might also believe that people who think the opposite are jingoistic, populist, or just plain simple-minded. I know people who feel that way. Some of them feel that the very concept of America is a thing worthy of mockery. After spending two months on a rock and roll tour in the Soviet Union in 1988, I began to understand how gravely misguided those people were. Today, I not only?understand?it, I feel it viscerally.?

Freedom lost, is not easily recovered

Whatever your political beliefs, the result of our present-day acceleration into a chaotic world, rife with extremism on all sides, is infinitely worse than anything most of us can comprehend. The disruption that’s overtaken the entire world began in earnest on October 7, 2023, with the brutal massacre of Jews, the worst since the Shoah. With shocking suddenness protests erupted worldwide—not in?support?of Israel, but in support of Hamas. Who could have imagined how quickly it would become acceptable to spew hatred against Jews and against the world’s only Jewish nation as it attempts to defend, not only itself, but also the whole hamstrung, craven West.?

Since that light fixture fell, I have been hyper-alert for a voice calling out…?Peter. Something is about to fall again. Just as has happened many times in our 3,330-year-old past, the Jews, the proverbial canary in the coal mine, are under attack. Do we need a clearer sign that a light is about to crash?

I will end with a prayer.

May a new and stronger light soon dawn, and may it be an invincible, permanent, and holy light—the light that each of us —in our own unique way—has been longing for. May this light illuminate not just our surroundings, but also our hearts and minds, guiding us towards a future where such darkness can never return.

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