Love Thy Neighbor
Flip Up Your Light Switch
By: Steven Andrew Schultz
She said something that totally changed me. She said it so nonchalantly too. But when she spoke, I
had one of those truly “lightbulb” moments where I knew my life would never be the same. My next-
door neighbor, Mary Luther (who was like another mother to me) said, “Well, I guess I no longer need
to flip up the switch anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I inquired. Mary told me the story of how one time she left her side backyard
light on all night by accident and how the next day when I came over to play with her toys, (I was
maybe three years old) my little toddler self apparently told her I had a really bad nightmare and woke
up scared, but this time I did not run to my parents room and wake them up because I saw a light
shining through my window. It was light from Mary’s house.
Mary said I told her that seeing her light made me feel safe and not scared of the “bad guys” or
“monsters” and because of her light I stayed in my bed and was able to fall back asleep in my own
room without waking up my parents. Mary then told me ever since then she made it part of her nightly
routine before she locked up and went to bed, to walk to her garage and flip up the switch to her
backyard light so I would feel safe and loved and know I was never alone. She had done it for so
many years she just kept doing it without thinking about it even though I was a teenager. Giving away
her light became part of her routine.
I was eighteen years old, about to begin college, outside talking to my neighbor Mary like I had done
almost every day since I could walk, and I had just told her I was moving out of the room I had lived in
my entire life. The bedroom whose window looked directly into Mary’s backyard where this little
uncovered lightbulb above the side door leading to her garage shined like the sun. And now she was
realizing she didn’t need to be my nightlight anymore, and I was realizing, for the first time, the impact
of unrealized leadership had on forming who I’d be.
It was one of the most moving stories I had ever heard. I knew, for some reason, I always felt safer
seeing her light each night; but of course, I didn’t know all these years she was keeping her light on to
serve me. Like most leadership impact, I didn’t even realize something was being done for me, to
benefit me, being done on purpose by someone for no other purpose than to give me peace. By
elevating the light switch to the on position, she elevated me to be a better person. And I don’t even
know if Mary ever quantified it that deeply, other than she was doing something kind for a little boy
and kept at it out of habit, but the gesture moved me greatly. Being an eighteen-year-old, although
touched, I still lacked the life capacity to fully inhale the magnitude of the love shown from one
neighbor to another. As I look back now, my heart weeps with gratitude. The child inside me wants to
wrap her up in an endless hug.
Mary’s love was deliberate, was daily, and developed me to feel more loved, to give more love, to be
Love, more. There are two kinds of leadership: 1. The light you shine by accident. 2. The light we turn
on, on purpose, in pursuit of life’s highest purpose: service to our neighbors.
Mary’s backyard light beamed right into my bedroom window from age three to eighteen, but at the
age of thirty-six as I write these words, I can still see her light; I still feel her love. That light that Mary
gave could not be seen from inside her house but shined into mine. Mary gained nothing from it and
had to pay to provide it. But her light reached a scared little boy, and now that boy has devoted his life
to giving his light away to as many people as possible before my bulb goes out. Because she did it
first, I now flip up my switch to elevate others. That’s leadership and there is no Amazon Prime in
leadership. You might have to wait decades to be delivered the news that you elevated someone.
Often, because they didn’t even realize it themselves until they gained the life capacity to
comprehend the service shown.
Monsters aren’t just things little children battle. Remember, every person you meet is just a child in a
bigger body. Think of all the unseen scars and inner battles so many adults face and most of them
don’t have their parents to run to anymore, nor nightlights by their bedside, either. Just imagine how
many lives can be saved and healed if more people loved like Mary and flipped up a light switch they
will never personally benefit from, but knowing in doing so, someone else will be able to get through
their darkness.
Every light switch I’ve ever seen has always worked in the same way: flip up for light and pull down
for dark. Up is light, down is dark. Up is on, down is off. Up gives, down hoards. It’s true with our
thoughts, words, and actions too. Up is light, down is dark. Will you be an elevator or a deflator?
When it comes to leadership, don’t focus on the title you have in your organization, but the position
you put your switch. Is yours down or up? Lead up and love will light the way home. The love you
give to a child does not leave them, even after you do.
Mary keeping her light on for me reminds me of my favorite message from one of my favorite novels,
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s the first book I read that made me cry. I read it in college, a
couple years after Mary told me the story of why she kept her light on. The novel takes place in an
America where civilization has totally collapsed due to either a nuclear war or environmental
catastrophe. There is no light anywhere, just a constant fog of grey and dirt. Everyone has lost their
morals, and many have even turned to cannibalism. There is a father and young son traveling down a
road trying to get to the ocean in hopes some civilization might still be alive. The boy’s mother killed
herself rather than continue on in the darkness and face the monsters of the night. In a world devoid
of light and love, the father keeps telling his son they are on an important mission of “carrying the fire”
down the road. The father is dying and doesn’t know how much longer he will be able to stay with his
son. He sees his boy as the last resemblance of God. His son is still pure and innocent and only sees
good in people and thus only wishes to do good to people. The father keeps telling his son they are
the “good guys” and his son’s most important mission is to “carry the fire” and give the light of the fire
to other good people when he finds them, so light can spread again in the world. The metaphor of
“carrying the fire” represents the invisible light inside each of us that represents our Godly goodness,
morals, and pure, childlike love.
I have not seen my Mary since my mom sold our house on 10325 Bunting Circle fifteen years ago.
Sometimes I’ll drive by and visit the old street which seems eerily silent now. I don’t know any of the
people who occupy the houses. But in the brief moments I stay there, I look at my old bedroom
window on the side of my old house, visible from the street, and the uncovered lightbulb resting just
above the fence next door. I think about that little boy who was so full of light that he was scared of
the dark, and his loving neighbor who left the light on for him, and my eyes water, my lips stretch to a
smile, and I examine how I’m leading.
My grandma Schultz gave me a poem called Lamplighter. The author is unknown:
“He has taken his bright candle and is gone
Into another room I cannot find.
But anyone can tell where he has been,
By all the little lights he leaves behind.”
I give the fire to you. May you leave the light on for someone else. Flip Your Switch Up!
