Lighting a Candle for Dan, his family and his friends

The monastery has a Pricket Stand, which holds a bunch of votive candles near the reserve sacrament. I've seen these in Catholic churches, but this is the first time I saw one in a protestant church. I've always hear the phrase "I'm lighting a candle for..." and never completely understood it. Here, I learned that by lighting the candle, we remind ourselves of our baptism and that we share the light of Christ. We are reminded that prayer is not self centered, it is God centered (the Pricket Stand is usually near a shrine or the reserved sacrament). And when we conclude our prayer and leave the lit candle behind, we are reminded that we never really leave the presence of God or the company of his saints.

After lighting the candle, I waited for 30 minutes in God's sanctuary for the Eucharist to begin. I was reflecting on the protestant concept of the "sainthood of all believers". I'll go out on a limb here assuming that Dan was a baptised Christian, and acknowledge that we now have a Saint Dan. How would we carve the statue of Saint Dan? Would he be wearing a robe - the "in thing" for saintly attire - or in his wrestling gear? I remember when Billy (our youngest son) died and I tried to picture Saint Billy. I decided that if he were carved in a robe, he'd have to have a look of itchy disgust on his face at the cumbersome garment. Saint Billy would best be carved in shorts with a skinned knee feeding the family dog... one... kernel... of ... dog... food... at... a... time. (We had a very patient dog.)

This morning my prayers centered around Dan's family, his friends, and the kids in my youth group - all of whom must be hurting. Yes, there will be an official mourning period of a few days... but do understand that the mourning goes on for a long time afterward. Especially for the family. They will be the loneliest starting a week after everyone goes home and continuing for a few months afterwards. I still don't know how I survived that time.