Skip to main content

Candles of Joy and Concern

A liturgical question:

What is the best equipment to use for candles of joy and concern? (I'll leave other questions about the best way of doing this aside for now)

I've used tea lights on a metal tray before, but I'm not sure that's the best way. I think a better way is probably taller candles in a bowl of sand like this:


Is that the best way to do it? It needs to be something that is safe and easy for people to use, especially elderly people. And something that looks good.

But where do you get a good bowl like that? Come to think of it, where do you get a big lot of sand? Any thoughts?

Comments

Rich said…
Somewhere like B&Q should sell you your sand.

As for the bowl, the first place I thought of was a craft fair. Usually there are wood turners there who would probably make one for you if they didn't have exactly what you wanted on the day.
Robin Edgar said…
Maybe you could throw a few Roman Candles in for people who have spectacular joys and concerns. ;-)
Anonymous said…
Sorry, bit late to be commenting on this but, firstly, how about CHILDREN? It's not just the elderly who find candles difficult, and children can and should be involved in joys and concerns services. They don't look so great but you can buy battery candles which kids can blow on and off. Tall candles have the advantage that they can be held more easily to light them off other candles - and that's the tricky bit with tea lights. Encourage people to light from the centre/back first. Craft sand may be better (but more expensive) for holding the candles. Even more straightforward would be a piece of wood with holes drilled to hold the candles. I sometimes wander why we can't do something else (like adding a flower to a vase) for joys and concerns... You could have different types of stems/greenery/spikey stuff etc so can people can pick something which fits their mood.

Popular posts from this blog

Swords into Ploughshares

  "They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Isaiah 2:4 Palestine Action are doing just this: beating swords into ploughshares i.e. putting weapons out of use. In doing so they are fulfilling this biblical mandate. They are expressing God's peace as expressed in the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition. God desires that our swords shall be beaten into ploughshares, that we should unlearn war. That the government wants to make this action illegal has to be confronted in the strongest terms. To rush to condemn attacks on weapons but not attacks on children is perverse. To call attacks on weapons terrorism but not attacks on children is perverse. When government comes to such an extreme position - legislating that peace is war, that weapons need more protection than children - then they have fundamentally gone wrong. This is the definitio...

Is humanism theologically tolerant?

OK, well this might be controversial, but I feel the need to say it. Is humanist tolerant? Please note I'm not asking about humanism within society. Clearly humanism certainly believes in tolerance within society and I'm forever glad they are often the only people in the media calling for a separation of church and state. No, what I'm talking about is descriptions of Unitarianism like this and adverts like this , discussed at Peacebang here , which say that humanism is one option, Christianity is another, God is one option among many. The trouble is, humanism, by definition is theologically opposed to theism. This is very different from the relationship between Christianity and Buddhism. These two traditions may be vastly different, but Buddhism, by definition , is not opposed to Christianity, and Christianity, by definition , is not opposed to Buddhism. But humanism is consciously defined in opposition to Christianity and theism. So to say that humanism and theism can bot...

Clergy-wear during protests

OK, I'm wandering into the territory of Beauty Tips for Ministers here, but a couple of recent conversations have brought up the issue of what clergy should wear for protests. I know a number of Ministers who only wear clerical collars for protests. The logic is that it's important to identify as a Minister when you're supporting something society doesn't expect clergy to. So Ministers will wear a collar at gay prides or pro-choice rallies to make this point. Now I could understand this if it you wore a collar going about your general business, and also did during a protest, but I'm quite uncomfortable with the idea of wearing clerical wear ONLY for protests. The seems to be something worth exploring. I have said before that I'm not in favour of special titles or clothing for religious leadership, mainly because Jesus explicitly said this was a lot of nonsense. Religious leaders should not need these articial crutches. I have no problem with certain liturgical c...