"I could light a candle inside; I could kneel on my knees and pray."

Larissa Kaye Batten (llbeara@aol.com) writes "Soul Food," a weekly column for SpiritSite.com.  

Larissa is a prolific writer whose work has been featured in several publications.  

It was windy. I was lost. It was biting cold. I couldn’t find my way. It was a London night, and I kept going around blocks to find the concert hall. 

It was a cold Christmas season night. I was lost in so many ways.

I couldn’t find a place to stay warm, and I didn’t know anymore how to feel safe. I was living in London, looking for the home I had lost and a way to find my own soul.

I was supposed to meet my friend Paul at the concert hall to hear Handel’s Messiah. If I knew of a Messiah at the time, I only knew a glimmer. I was terrified of my life, and I so desperately wanted to climb out of the darkness. But I was also afraid of any hint of the light. 

I had never truly known of light. I had grown up with a darkness in me, and now I was afraid of the dark and afraid of the light.

I was so cold that night. London cold is wet and reaches through the skin to chill the bones. The cold holds on tightly, and I did not have the wherewithal to fend it off.

Lost on this cold London night, in search of Handel’s Messiah, I found a flicker of warm, a single ray of the light. A little room appeared out of nowhere. I had never seen such a room before. The room was not much larger than a telephone booth, but it had no telephone inside. It was not for that kind of communication.

The room stood on a long, long block of London cold, stone buildings, on a stony cold night. The room stood alone along the sidewalk. A little light shone through, and it somehow beckoned to me.

I opened the door and walked in. The room was for blessings. I could light a candle inside; I could kneel on my knees and pray. I could pray for anyone I chose to pray for. I had never seen such a room before, and I have not seen one again since.

I knelt naturally, as though I had knelt since the day I was born. I was born into a religion that does not ask people to kneel. I had learned to kneel anyway. The darkness had weighed me down to my knees in the few years past.

So I lit a candle in the little room on a cold London night on my way to the Messiah.

I could have chosen any prayer at all, and I could have prayed for anyone, most of all for myself.

The prayer came naturally as I knelt in the light of this room.

I prayed for the man who sexually abused me as a child. I prayed that he would have everything that I wanted for myself. I had been told such a prayer would help relieve me of the resentment that burned me inside. I prayed for his peace.

And I left. I left behind the darkness for a few hours on that cold London night. I left behind the extreme of anger and pain. I left behind the unyielding resentment. And I hurried down the rest of the road to Handel’s Messiah.

Years later, in warm, sunny South Carolina, just before the holidays of 1999, my husband and I prepared our holiday gift for our relatives and friends. We sent out a card like we always do now, explaining where we had donated the money we would have used to buy gifts for our loved ones.

We told our loved ones that we had donated the money for their gifts to Habitat for Humanity to provide safe and loving housing for those who needed it. But this year was special. This was the year that everyone spoke of the big year 2000. I was petrified that we wouldn’t make it through the new year, that we humans would somehow destroy our planet.

So my husband and I made an addition to our gift. We sent everyone a single white candle, a very small candle. We asked our loved ones to light their candles and to say a prayer for world peace.

The same light that had drawn me into the small room in London to pray for the man who had hurt me had enfolded me in its bosom of light again. We asked our loved ones to pass on this light.

My friend Shannah has been lighting a candle for my family every night in recent weeks. She knows it is a difficult time for us.

My friend Bill lit a candle for me years ago in Trinity Church in New York when I didn’t believe I’d make it through the challenges in my life back then.

I lit a candle recently for a man I barely know. He has terminal cancer.

Last night, my husband lit a candle for dear Grandma Batten, who passed on only nights ago.

Catholics light candles in cathedrals.

Jews light candles for the Sabbath.

Campers use flashlights to find their way on their travels.

Christians light candles on Christmas trees.

Fancy restaurants have candles lit on fancy tables.

All around the world, in all faiths, in all ways, we rely on the power of light.

That night so long ago that I lit a candle on my way to finding Handel’s Messiah, little did I know how much we all rely on light to lead the way.

When my grandparents passed away, and each year on the anniversary of their deaths, my mother lights a special candle that burns for 24 hours to commemorate the ones we love.

When God called for light, there was light.

I do not believe God created light so we could live in darkness.

I believe God created light so we could live in the love of it.

I also believe God created light so we could pass it on.

May the light God created live on.

May we all light candles in the name of light.

May we all light candles in love.

And may we shine in the brightness of God’s light.

Amen.

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