Built to serve
This post was inspired by my visit to the National Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island, New York. To listen to an audio version of this post, click here.
Lighthouses. George Bernard Shaw said they were built to serve. But what about the lighthouse keepers? They served not only locals and sea-farers but also the lighthouses themselves. They devoted their lives to lighting fires, keeping them ablaze on stormy nights. Sitting awake in the darkest, quietest hours while all others slept, and dreamed. In later decades, they ensured there was oil enough to burn beyond midnight all the way through to dawn.
These people; these keepers, gave their lives to preserve others. Their purpose: to shine light on even the blackest nights. When even starlight and moonlight was blotted out by thick cloud.
It was a noble existence. The longer I live, the more I am convinced that there is no greater privilege than serving another. To see the joy in their eyes when they understand that someone else prioritised their need and want above anyone else’s.
But a life of servitude comes at a price. It is lonely. Others don’t always understand the desire to give and look for motive where there is none. Interpret humility as lowliness and wonder why a person would choose that over power. Such minds will never understand that the most powerful act anyone can carry out is to give. The second is to receive with grace.
Most keepers were men. The women who kept lighthouses were typically women who had never married or were widows. Looking at their pictures mounted on museum boards, I wonder if those women ever invited broad-shouldered sailors into their sleeping quarters during the wild, windswept hours before daylight broke once more over the horizon.
I wonder if they ever wanted to feel something other than froth and sea spray against their skin. If they yearned to be lit only by the shine of a lover’s eyes for once. Or if they resigned themselves to the fact that the moment they took up their post at the top of the tower, they had committed their whole being to the ocean and would never know another master.
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