This is my meditation candle. I found it in a scratch and dent shelf for $5 and it is my new favorite candle. (I have a lot of favorite candles.) It is made of white satin spar selenite crystal and is named for Selene, the Moon Goddess of ancient Greece. I am going to ask my friend Rick to teach me about its properties. It has a natural luminescence because, as the light from the candle hits the surrounding vertical mineral strands, the light bounces from strand to strand throughout the mineral, lighting up the entire piece of crystal. Early in the morning, when all else is dark, this candle and holder is the one I use for the Epiphany and Easter seasons. Changing meditation candles and holders at home, by the season, is not so different from the way we change the decorations in the church seasonally. It makes the home-worship creative and fun; and its marks shifts in time. It also means that there is wonderful candle shopping to be done with Jesus as the excuse. (Now, see. Why do I write things like this when I know they will get me in trouble…..?) (…because it’s so fun!)
Spending a few minutes in the darkness of the morning with a candle, open to God’s whisperings or God’s silent, loving, approving gaze is the heart and soul of my life. Church is just where, what I do all week, comes together in a celebration with the community in which I exercise my faith. I am absolutely convinced that humans, spending a few minutes in silence each day, will change the world.
The “light” theme of Epiphany is just a way for the church to introduce, annually, a season of searching and finding in the dark. It is a provocative season if you look at it with care. We are all just trying to find our way; and if I have one criticism of the church it is that she is a made up, too often, of too many who are too sure of too much. We secretly love mystery when we are alone in our homes with a candle. But bring mystery into a board room or vestry meeting and the lock-down begins so that mystery and messy-chaos is forced into an order or (still worse) control which makes executives feel like they have accomplished something. It is sweet, really. Understandable. They just need a hug.
I am writing the early drafts of my book manuscript on Rule of Life in advance of the classes which begin Wednesday night at Cathedral Nite. Epiphany is a wonderful season in which to begin this four-month weekly class. Epiphany is a season in which we sit silently with the star and wonder at our lives. Where am I going? Is this the life I want? What would need to happen to change my life? What do I need to know about the forces acting in my life – the kind ones and the evils? What are my hopes for my life? What would have to happen for those hopes to be realized in my real life? What cycles do I get caught up in which send me off-center. What would my life be like if I were to have a 1 minute, written reminder (which, by the way, I wrote for myself) of my hope for my life in thirty areas like food, money, sex, exercise, study, worship, friendship, sabbath-rest, work, prayer, etc.?
The Rule of Life class will not only be a place in which we study the 3,000 year history of Rules of Life, but will be a laboratory in which we will each write our Rule and its 30 passages, by the light of a star and the light of each other’s wisdom and experience. What fun!
