MAKE LIGHT WORK
Last Sunday night, Travis and I went to a concert at The Mothership, a fantastic outdoor venue on the Hondo Mesa, on the way to the Gorge Bridge. We were in Taos for a long weekend with no plans beyond relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We happened to see a flyer advertising a free music series throughout the summer, clocked that one of the shows would be happening while we were in town, and though neither of us had heard of the band, we decided to check it out.
The Mothership is an awesome space — great sound and lights on stage, with unobstructed mountain views. First, we got a breathtaking sunset. Then, sparkling stars. The multigenerational crowd in attendance was kooky and friendly, with many in fanciful outfits. Travis (thankfully) talked me out of investing in a purple leather and chain captain’s hat from the merch table.
And the band — yowza, so much fun! Actually, the bands, plural. The opening act was the Korvin Balkan Brass Orkestar, from Santa Fe, serving up Eastern European and Turkish tunes; unexpected and outstanding. The event headliners were Marchfourth, out of Portland: a funk, psychedelic marching band, with a sort of steampunk-burlesque-circus vibe. A big group — 8 horns, 4 percussionists, guitar, bass, and 3 performers who walked on stilts, juggled on a unicycle, and hula-hooped — they were sexy, hypnotic, and joyful.
Anyway, one of Marchfourth’s tunes contained the refrain, “Many hands make light work.” The lead singer introduced the number with a call to community, the importance of community. How during times like these it is essential for us to find each other. That we must figure out how to work together and create together. The audience immediately joined in, everyone chanting, “many hands make light work,” as the sun went down.
And because I’m always on the lookout and listen-up for sermon ideas, I put it in my pocket.
The expression is quite old. It first appeared in the 1300s in the medieval romance, Sir Bevis of Hampton. For seven-hundred years, we’ve been reciting this phrase about the benefit of cooperative effort: Many hands make light work.
It sticks because it’s true. We can accomplish more together, and often it’s easier together.
Of course, we’ve also got conventional wisdom to the contrary, like “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” There’s a Spanish saying —“Muchas manos en un plato hacen mucho garabato” — which means, “Too many hands on a plate make a mess.”
So, yes. We can grant that, too — that the more of us are involved in an undertaking, the more complicated and convoluted things tend to get. We encounter different and conflicting ideas and intentions. We face discomfort, inconvenience, confusion. A lot of the time it really may seem like everything would be so much simpler and better if everyone would just agree with me and do it my way.
But the thing is, simple isn’t always better. Truth can be really complex. Inclusiveness and authenticity and honesty sometimes take effort and commitment.
While clarity might at first glance appear to call for one singular purpose, principle, ideal, or belief — Love, Beauty, Justice, Good, God — a closer look at any of these values reveals boundless depth. The living experience of anything involves multitudinous perspectives and fundamental contradictions.
And, indeed, this is how LIGHT WORKS.
“Many hands make light work” usually suggests light as opposed to heavy, light rather than burdensome and difficult. But it could also mean light rather than darkness.
I hate to oversimplify, but I’m not a physicist, so I won’t pretend to understand it exactly how subatomic photons traveling at about 300,000 km/second create what we call “light.” Most of the time, I relate to Light like a simple binary, either/or, on/off. But what Light is, in fact, is a gazillion-gazillion wave-particles zipping across the universe in every direction all at once at unimaginable speeds.
Light is part of an electromagnetic energy spectrum that includes infinite wavelengths, mostly beyond human perception. We can see a tiny example of its diversity in rainbows, where water droplets or other prisms refract it into different visible components. But the truth of Light Itself is that it includes all these colors and countless more. Our eyes happen to catch a tiny glimpse of it, here and there, and we make it mean stuff.
Light works by infinite components coming together in specific combinations. Many wavelengths make light work.
Also, at the same time, we make light work by perceiving it through our different eyeballs, interpreting it through our different consciousnesses, then actualizing our vision for the future with our physical efforts. Many hands make light work.
A friend posted this beautiful quote on social media yesterday:
… perhaps
the task before us now
is not merely
to save the world
but to become
the kind of people
capable
of inhabiting it together.
It is from civil rights and labor activist Grace Lee Boggs. She was riffing on Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who wrote about building our world together. Grace Lee Boggs shifted the emphasis to living peacefully and collaboratively in the world we’ve already got.
In the end it doesn’t have to be one or the other. It can’t be. Making light work is always both.
I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, July 26, 10:00am at q-Staff Theatre. With the divine Patty Stephens. XO, Drew
©2026 Drew Groves
