Colour Supplement

Articles by writers around the world

Sunday 23 September 2007

 

Community Candles

By Gordon Atkinson

 

In the late 90's, when we were planning our first building, we decided against pews, pulpits, and most of the things that mark usual places of worship. We were used to somewhat casual settings, having worshipped in a home, a daycare center, a fire station, a bar, and an elementary school. It's not that we didn't recognize the value of sacred spaces. We just had some different ideas about how sacred spaces might look.

Yes, a bar. It was the Duckblind Lounge, and I'll warrant we were the only Baptist church meeting in a bar at that time.

In the end we opted for a large room with moveable chairs and a fireplace at one end. We had in mind a kind of "retreat center" look and feel.

 

We did have a couple of actual fires in the fireplace during worship in the early days. The unwritten but understood rule was: "If you want a fire, bring wood and build one. But you have to clean up the fireplace afterwards."

That second part of the equation slowed down the fires quite a bit.

I don't remember when I put the candles in the fireplace, but it must have been sometime in 2001. I brought a candle rack and laid it on top of the heavy, iron bars that held the firewood. Since then we've had a fireplace full of candles. For years we bought matching sets of candles, and I must say that they looked very nice.

But recently I noticed that my candle cabinet was full of odds and ends. There were candle stubs from this season or that, unused candles, candles from weddings and parties, and some candles I'd never seen before. I don't even know how they got there. So I loaded up the fireplace with a variety of candles from our past. Different colors, different shapes, some kind of new and others almost used up.

I thought it looked rather nice, myself. It kind of reminded me of looking out into the congregation on a Sunday morning.

I few weeks ago I invited the children of our church to bring a candle from home and put it into the fireplace. "You could have your own candle," I said. So candles started appearing. The first was Madeline's candle. Madeline, who just turned four, has rather captured my heart these days. But then, I was a little vulnerable, having realized that there are no more little girls in my own home. Sloan brought the next candle, then Anna brought one.

Yes, this is the same Anna from my CC essay, "The Gospel According to Anna." You can view the actual manuscript of Anna's gospel here. Don't miss the footnotes.

Next appeared a candle that had been owned by Barbara, who died a couple of years ago. Then some candles from a wedding showed up. I added a pink candle stub from Advent 1997 that I had been saving in my office. With all of this new activity, I thought I'd better keep a photographic log.

See above for a larger view

Honestly, I had no theological reasons for putting candles in our fireplace. Like much that I do, I was just following a whim. BUT, as I am watching the fireplace change, it does occur to me that the candles in our fireplace make up a splendid symbol of our community. They come in all shapes and sizes. Some burn brightly, while others slowly flicker and die out. Each one appears in its own time and for its own reasons, and all of them contribute to the whole.

The body of Christ.

rlp

Gordon Atkinson is pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas and has his own outstanding website www.reallivepreacher.com.  We are most grateful to Gordon for his permission to reproduce his essays here.

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