Quiet Moments
When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing - just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?
Ralph Marston
In a time that seems so far away and often times distant which in reality really isn’t for time is relative. We look at the time on a clock each day, or on our cell phones or perhaps what some may consider to be an ancient artifact a watch. Yet do we really pay attention to time itself, yes, we do usually when it seems to go slowly or quickly.
In what I will call another time in life when I was a youngster of sorts I was with my parents and grandparents in a church we had stopped to visit. I don’t remember why we did just that we did. What is most significant about the event is my grandfather lifting me up to light a candle. He struck the match and helped me to light the candle, I had felt the warmth of the flame as it got too close to my fingers. It didn’t burn me it just did what a flame does, it doesn’t have intention as much as it has purpose. The purpose was to light the candle and say a small prayer, what I said that day over forty years ago is lost to memory. It must have been important enough to light a candle and place some coins into the slot.
Speed up a number of years to today, okay not exactly today but not yesterday either. Now instead of a candle in a church I light one in my own home. It’s a yahrzeit candle and it is lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death or someone special. The candle burns for approximately 24 hours. Prayers can be said or simple words, but most importantly its lit in remembrance of the deceased on the eve of the anniversary of their death. The moments are what you make them as the moment lighting the candle until the moment it goes out is what matters. It’s a gentle reminder of a person who lived a life and needs to be remembered.
Yet there are many other times we light candles, at birthdays, weddings, dinners or just because, there is something about the glow of a candle that we lose ourselves in the glow of its flame even if it is for only a moment.
