PASSING CANDLES
Five pascal candles are huddling in the shed. Each had its year of burning, each was ignited first on an Easter Eve, each carried down the long aisle before a procession of rising expectations. Each lit, Sunday by Sunday, season through season, greeting the changing faces of a congregation in all our changing times.
Stunted and bowed from the glowing, each is a sentinel to my life of service, in our lives together. Now they wait in long periods of darkness, their heralding done, their wax depleting, their stature diminished. I do love them, gnarled as they are. They are among my quiet treasures. I light them sometimes, remembering that they are the light of Christ. They rise and shine to the occasion, as troopers do. They flicker and burn with a brightness they enjoy, and then we talk and smile awhile, remembering that the Christ they carry, lives, lives in this little country corner, and in us.
G.M.S.
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