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CANDLE: LIGHTING THE WAY OF OTHERS

we surely have some candle people in our life. their smiles, support, kindness, love, care, prayers, calls, messages surely help people like me. I have so far experienced a lot. one professor and a doctor adopted me as their son, while I was on the street of life for survival and the story is now a grand history.you may need to know there is a God who cares even when we think he is deaf and dumb to our pleas. I have received help from strangers alike, some I can't explain, others better left explained. one old woman will always pray anytime she sees me," miracle, you will marry the bone of your bone and have a good success", anytime, any day, anywhere. some Muslims and Christians clerics will never forget me when they are praying. this is not because am perfect but because of the grace I receive. Having the right candle people around you helps you grow in wisdom and posperity.
 
M

magikheart

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I think this idea of a candle person is incredibly interesting. I've never heard the term before, but it does work quite well for those who act as beacons, spread the light, and are a constant reminder for your spiritual prayer and health. There are people in my life, that no matter how badly things get, I know I will have their prayers. This is one of the amazing reasons we go to church. Many people believe you can worship on your own, which you can, but the fellowship that goes along can really be inspiring and help us to grow in the casting of their flame.
 
I also like this term candle people. Reminds of that maxim, better to light a candle than curse the darkness. I've also heard of the expression in Spanish, se le aparecio un angel... an angel appeared unto him. Thinking of a cruel Mexican saying - si te tiran un hueso,es porque no quieren que te mueras... if they threw you a bone its because they didn't want to die. This can be read very cynically of course - specially if you ad 'yet' at the end- but as Mexicans are pretty upbeat people, it means something like,,, everybody gets a break,,, the world isn't all bad,,, and like that.
The idea behind it all is that no one makes it on their own. I am very cognizant of 'gestures' as I call them. When any small kindness or show of respect comes my way, I note it and celebrate it. As someone overly analytical and with eeyore-ish tenedencies, it helps stay on a more even keel.
Beyond that, I don't relieve that prayers to a deity are specially effective. I do like believing that the world somewhat responds to the energy one puts out.. but not in a specific karmic way. But I am torn about being a candle or angel to anyone, though its my nature. See next post.
 
The idea of, to use the OPs term, being or having Candles is conflicted. I strongly believe in the power of agency - a poor term probably borrowed from academe. Agency is You as an actor. The opposite would be the Victim or perennial re-actor.
Whenever you, with best intentions, tell or impose your solutions to their problem you are in a way disrespecting them and impinging on their agency. You can hear this in the child's cry of 'don't tell me what do' or 'you're not the boss of me'. But people love to impose their wills onto others be it by peer pressures, laws, force, or religion. Its not just about letting everyone 'paddle their own canoe' or an excuse to be selfish. It's about Respecting another's belief, approach, even their ignorance.
Years ago I ran a Hotline in CA central coast. It was for folks in distress in various ways and those considering suicide. As you can imagine it was staffed by well intentioned volunteers. Before training, they were quick to mete out solutions either from our resources or their head. Some responses were good, others not so good - an even had legal repercussions. My training was about two things: first, listen.....listen. People in distress often don't have anyone to really listen to them. The people near them are in distress themselves or have an agenda or don't have anything to add. Often just by listening to the clients they would come up with their own solutions or navigate to what was really the problem.
The second lesson was: facilitate their solutions, not yours. They must own their solutions as they do their problems.
I also talked about what i call Wisconsin Coaching. People in the mid-west apart from being pretty polite, are also naturally respectful. I coined the phrase when I had a car breakdown near Racine and couldn't quite fix the problem. A nice guy stopped despite the freezing snow and came over and asked if 'I was ok' not ]can I help?'. As he looked around the engine and my jury rigged repairs, he'd say things like, 'well, a guy could make a case for re-attaching the vacuum hose' and ' sometimes there's a lag between.....' and ' I've seen where....' The point being that at no point was this guy going to tell me what to do. That would be impinging on my knowledge of car repair and worse on my sovereignty as an individual. It would arrogant for him to think I didn't know and disrespectful for him to tell me what I should do. He made it easy for me to confess my ignorance and to accept his help. We worked collegially after that and I was soon back on the road. Wisconsin Coaching.
Back in my Hotline example, I can tell you that we lost a lot of volunteers after the training. They were very happy feeling like do-gooders and telling these unfortunates what to do but to just listen to them or help them on their terms.....not so much.
People just starting out working with the unfortunate or dispossessed are often very surprised that the poor have preferences and definite opinions of what help they'll accept and how.
As all-knowing philanthropist billionaire Mr. Bill Gates found out ---it was easy enough for him to buy Millions of mosquito nets to give away to the poor in Zambia to eradicate malaria only to find years later the rates were the same.
The nets werent being used as intended but were being sold off or used as fishing nets. Not because the Zambians valued living malaria-free less, but they valued eating , via fishing, more.
 

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