“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.  Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

– Buddha

Summer is beginning to slip away.  There are signs everywhere.  The fruits of late summer are ripe for picking.  Birds are beginning to leave their solitary nesting places and flock from place to place as they prepare for their migration to warmer lands.  School buses roll by as the drivers determine how much time it will take to collect students and deliver them to school.  And the sun still sleeps, although I am awake.

I have loved the summer days, in spite of the record temperatures we have endured this year; but the one thing I miss most during the season is the chance to see darkness turn to light with the rising of the sun.  As I begin to enjoy that luxury once again, it occurs to me that maybe I love it so much because it reminds me of who I am.  There are heavy clouds hanging in the sky this morning, but even they cannot completely keep the light at bay.  As I type this, a glance toward the eastern horizon reveals a strip of bright red light glowing beneath the flat, black cloud.  Red sky at morning — storms are on their way — but still the sun brings light to the world and another day begins.

Hope is a lot like the sunrise.  I think of times when we have lost power during a storm and the whole house suddenly goes black.  We feel our way to the matches and light a candle and set it in the middle of the table.  With darkness all around it, that candle creates a glow that draws us all near to it and assures us that the darkness will not prevail.  At a time like that, what is it that commands our attention?  It is not the darkness, but the one small point of light in the midst of the shadows. It would seem that we were made to seek light; and I think I love the sunrise as much as I do because it reminds me of the hope that endures — even at the darkest hour.

We can be the bringers of light, too.  I might wish that I could be like the sun and return daylight to the entire world; but I am only one small point of light — one candle — and no matter how much I try to shine, I can only sit in the center of the table and bring a tiny bit of hope to those within the reach of my light.  I was thinking last night of a long-ago campfire on the last day of camp.  As the night grew late and the fire began to die, each of us held a small, white candle glued to a tiny wooden boat.  We had prepared them for this special evening; and now we stood in a circle around the embers of our time together and waited.  Our leader lit her own candle and turned to the girl next to her.  She passed the light to that girl, who passed it to the next; and before long it had made its way around the entire circle.  There we stood in the darkness, a circle of light that illuminated the sparkling eyes of each girl as we shared the wonder of the moment.

Then we did a most amazing thing.  We carried our candles carefully to the shore of the lake and launched them at the edge of the water.  Before long, our little boats had carried them in the current, and it seemed as though the whole lake was glowing with the light of just one candle — passed along again and again until it made quite a glow.

With stars shining above and candles glowing on the water, we said our good nights and retreated to our tents for the last time.  We had learned something that night, although the whole truth may have taken many years to really reveal itself.  None of us can be the sun and bring light to the whole world single-handedly.  But each of us has the potential to be that candle in the storm that draws others out of the shadow and into the light of hope.  Each of us has the potential to offer that light — or to choose to light our own from the hope of another and carry it on through whatever darkness the world may offer.  Imagine, if you will, the dying campfire — the end of the light that we had loved — and then, in the midst of the darkness, one tiny candle whose flame ignited many others and soon brought a light to the lake that rivaled the stars in the sky.