I’m here on my favorite chair watching the TV Sunday morning news. It’s one year since Charleston horrific shooting at the Church where nine people were killed. Carol & I made a point of going to the spot when in Charleston last year, but try as I may I couldn’t find anything to photograph.

Oh, I did take pictures of things I thought I should take pictures of. But I was cold.

It was another beautiful day in Charleston but I somehow felt so insignificant as we looked at the artificial flowers, ribbons and scrolled sayings here and there.

So, I turned to my list of images on file in Lightroom, and this is what caught my eye.

If only there were answers. If there was some direction. And now Orlando.

But earlier this morning I was testing another candle and noticed how bright and steady the flame was. I began to think of it as a symbol, somehow. I was feeling  something more real to me and put the words down as they came to me…

Unto each of us is given…

The flame is a source of many things.
Heat to cook with, to nourish our bodies or warm ourselves from outside.
Light to read by or allow it’s message to come to us from whereever.
It’s an opportunity to set aside our cares or concerns of the day to receive what we need  to nourish our spirit.
If we can but breathe deeply the essence of the flame, we can draw from it strength or enlightment. This is the time to rest out thoughts and open our receptors. A time to receive from without that which we need within.
Listening for that still small voice as C. Charles Chatham would call it.
For it is from within that we give, that light can be passed on.