Keep Your Inner Porch Light On

When I was coming up, folks kept a porch light on at night.

It wasn’t for show. It meant somebody was home. It meant if you were out late, or lost, or just tired from the road, there was a place that knew you were coming. A little light against a whole lot of dark.

I’ve been thinking about that light all day. We’ve got five days left before Tuesday. And if the last few weeks are any guide, those five days are going to be dark ones. We’re going to get a flood. Lawsuits, threats, headlines built to scare you, one thing dumped on top of another, faster than anybody can keep up.

That’s not an accident. When you can’t win an argument, you can try to bury it. You throw so much at people that they can’t see straight. You make the dark so thick that folks forget the sun is still up there. And tired people sitting in the dark start to think morning isn’t coming.

But here’s the thing about darkness. It has no power of its own. It’s only what’s left when the light goes out. One small bulb on a porch pushes it back. Not all of it. Just enough to see your way to the door. Just enough to know you’re not alone out there.

So that’s what I’m asking you to do for the next five days. Keep your porch light on. I don’t mean the one on your house, though that’s fine too. I mean the one inside you. The part that still believes this country can find its way home.

How do you keep that light on? You start small. You don’t read every headline twice. When something new gets dumped on the pile, you take a breath before you take the bait. You ask what it actually is, not what it’s trying to make you feel. Half of what comes at us this week will be noise. Noise can’t hurt you unless you let it into the house.

You keep the light on by talking to people. Call somebody you haven’t called in a while. Check on the neighbor who lives alone. Ask the young person down the street if they’ve got a plan to vote. Light spreads that way, one porch to the next, until a whole street is lit.

You keep the light on by remembering what’s already been done. People have worked hard to get here. They’ve knocked on doors in the rain. They’ve stood in long lines to vote early, in numbers that are breaking records in some places. That work doesn’t disappear because somebody dumps a bad headline on top of it. It’s still there. It’s still counting.

You keep the light on by staying steady. There’s a difference between being alert and being afraid. Alert people watch, write things down, and call the right office when something looks wrong. Afraid people stay home. The ones throwing all this darkness at us are counting on fear. Don’t give it to them.

And you keep the light on by trusting each other. Our system isn’t one man. It’s poll workers who’ve done this job for twenty years. It’s county clerks of both parties who take the work seriously. It’s judges who read the evidence. It’s millions of regular people who show up and do their part. That’s a lot of porch lights. More than any one person can switch off.

Now, I’ll be honest with you. Some of what comes this week may be ugly. Some of it may be frightening. I’m not going to tell you to pretend otherwise. But dark nights end. They always have. Every one of them in this country’s history has ended, even the long ones. The sun didn’t go anywhere. It’s just on the other side of the dark, same as always.

Our job isn’t to make the sun come up. That’ll happen on its own. Our job is to keep enough light going through the night so nobody gets lost before morning. So the tired ones can find their way. So the scared ones know somebody’s home.

So keep the porch light on. Vote, if you haven’t. Help somebody else do it if you have. Turn off the noise when it gets too loud. Hold on to each other.

Five days. The light’s on. Come on home.

Oh…I am going to leave my porch light on also just in case someone gets lost.

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This post was drafted with AI governed assistance and reviewed and directed by Michael S. Faust Sr. before publication.

” Attic Thoughts”-library – Intelligent People Assume Nothing