I’m in the land of lighthouses, New Brunswick. People talk about ‘lighthouse’ schools to describe places we should run to see. Of course, if you run towards a lighthouse, you’re almost centre to run aground. It’s not the lighthouse, but the light it casts, that matters.

Off the east coast of Scotland, there’s a lighthouse built on a rock that is barely there.

The Bell Rock Lighthouse stands on the Inchcape Rock, a reef that disappears under the sea for most of the day. At low tide, a small section emerges briefly, sometimes for little more than an hour, before the water closes over it again.

In the early 1800s, ships were constantly wrecking there. But nobody could agree onwhether anything could be done about it.

The engineer Robert Stevenson (the grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson) proposed building a lighthouse directly on the reef.

Most people thought it was impossible.
Some thought it was reckless. Others, downright stupid.

There was nowhere to stand, let alone to build a strong structure. There was no land for a worker base. No shelter from the elements. No margin for error.

So the workers lived on a ship anchored nearby. And every day, they watched the sea.

When the tide dropped and the rock appeared, they rushed in. In a short window, they would lay a stone.
Then another.
Then they’d scurry back aboard their boat as the tide returned, the rock vanishing again.

For years, it looked like nothing was happening.

No grand structure rising.
There was no visible progress.
All people could see were these seasick men, scurrying onto a rock, working briefly, and leaving. And not a jot of progress to show for it.

And so it didn’t take long for people to start mocking the project. Critics called it folly.
From the shore, it must have looked like effort without outcome. All thunder, no rain.

Until, slowly, something started to appear.

The sea was as rough as ever. The fog as thick as pea soup. But a solid point of reference began to emerge where there had been none before.

The lighthouse didn’t remove the uncertainty of Captains navgating the shoreline, and it didn’t even tell the ships where to go.

The lighthouse simply said: “This is here. This is real. Pay attention.”

And ships began to steer differently.

In the same way, we can each be a lighthouse, shining a light on what’s going on, and helping those around us make their own decisions about how to navigate for a better tomorrow.