{"id":2761,"date":"2017-01-07T13:16:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2017-01-07T13:16:20","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T13:16:20","slug":"light-a-candle-or-curse-the-darkness-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/light-a-candle-or-curse-the-darkness-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Light a Candle . . or . . Curse the Darkness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a prayer league called the Christopher’s who have as their motto, “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”. What a wonderful motto. I bet you can explain its meaning without much coaching . . . spread the light, not the dark.<\/p>\n

But what does that mean in practical ways? It means there is a choice to be made in many of our human activities, a choice between goodness and meanness, or truth or lies, or generosity and selfishness.<\/p>\n

There are of course “neutral choices” or choices of preference (the soup you eat or the toothpaste you buy) that don’t spread light or darkness. But think for a minute how many times in the day we are confronted with opportunities for goodness or evil in the twinkling of an eye.<\/p>\n

Do I:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Say something positive about a person or<\/strong> join in the litany of faults that others enjoy telling?<\/p>\n

Watch something funny or human or beautiful on TV or<\/strong> search out programming with ultra violence, fear or lewdness?<\/p>\n

Try to find something hopeful in a difficult situation or<\/strong> enjoy describing how terrible things are?<\/p>\n

Do I wait for the smallest opportunity to “be offended” or<\/strong> do I take any personal slights as coming from someone whose day is probably harder than mine? Someone who needs my patience.<\/p>\n

Do I take the old comfortable path of minimal effort or<\/strong> do I try to make something beautiful or excellent?<\/p>\n

Do I give a person the benefit of the doubt or<\/strong> do I presume their motives are small and mean.<\/p>\n

Do I enjoy getting angry and being hurt? or<\/strong> do I try (not always successfully!) to ignore or forgive?<\/p>\n

Do I grab that parking spot or<\/strong> let someone else have it?<\/p>\n

Do I enjoy a whining (“It’s just not fair!”) or<\/strong> do I try to point to what’s wrong in a way that people are invited to correct (“Why don’t we try this? Let’s try to make this better”)<\/p>\n

\nDid you know that the light is more powerful than the dark? (Sometimes we wonder, don’t we?) Think about it though – what is darkness but the absence of light. Darkness is removed by lighting a light. Try that at home. Wait till dark. Make sure all the lights are out in the room. Then light a single candle. The entire room catches the light however dimly. See it flicker on the wall! Darkness has no power over light . . . so long as it shines.<\/p>\n

“Dear God, help me to learn to love your Light. Help me to learn that I carry your Light. Oh God, use me to spread your Light.”<\/p>\n

Bless you always, <\/p>\n

Fr. Tim<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is a prayer league called the Christopher’s who have as their motto, “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”. What a wonderful motto. I bet you can explain its meaning without much coaching . . . spread the light, not the dark. But what does that mean in practical ways? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weekly-column"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2762,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holytrinityweb.com\/weekly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}