BURNING OR JUST GLOWING
Are You Burning—or Just Glowing?
My predawn ritual begins with lighting a fragrant candle that sits atop a four-shelf bookcase. A few months ago, that ritual changed. For a milestone birthday two years earlier, a friend gifted me an electric candle warmer lamp. “Hmm,” I thought, “nice gift, but I am never going to use it.” I liked striking a match, touching it to the wick, and watching the flame catch. So, I continued buying candles.
Then, while cleaning one day, the discarded gift resurfaced. Having just dealt with several half-used candle containers, I suddenly saw the candle lamp as the perfect solution to an emerging problem. I positioned it over one of the half-spent candles, and a power switch replaced the match in my morning ritual.
Months later, I sat across the room, looking at the glow of the halogen bulb hovering over the candle, and had an epiphany. A candle has one primary purpose: to light the darkness. Yet a multibillion-dollar industry has been built around its secondary purposes—fragrance, ambience, and more. The lamp had stripped the candle of its primary purpose. Over the next few months, I made other observations. The fragrance infused in the wax eventually faded. The wick became unanchored from the bottom of the container, drowned in the melted wax, and floated. The lamp lit the dark corner of the room; the candle did not.
The candle had lost its reason for being. Interestingly, from across the room, the candle appeared to be lighting the corner—with one exception: there was no flickering flame. From a distance, one might believe the candle was living out its purpose. Only up close did the truth become clear.
Can you see yourself—or someone you know—in this story?
Each of us has a specific role to play in bringing light to the world. We are each accountable for discovering the match that lights our wick—our purpose—so that our light can shine. I would venture to say that many of us have settled for a candle lamp. For years, we may release a sweet, often artificial fragrance into the atmosphere, mesmerizing those around us into believing we are living authentically. Eventually, though, the aroma grows faint and disappears. Gradually, others see that we are not what we appeared to be from a distance—or self-discovery reveals that we are not living our purpose, leaving us feeling like a wick floating in a container of melted wax.
I can fully appreciate the appeal of candle warmer lamps. They are safe! A lighted candle is a fire hazard. A candle lamp can burn for hours without attention, but a lighted candle requires personal supervision—and, eventually, replacement and change.
If we are called to be candles for the world, can we truly live out our purpose while remaining under a candle warmer lamp?
Consider Rumi’s words: “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
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