A meditation on a tiny candlelight

While reading Mga Simulain ko sa Pamumuhay, as I do these morning, I light a candle. Today, it was the scented candle Lea bought for me on my first birthday here in LB in 2021. I wasn't able to manage the wick enough so that it submerged into the center so deep with still a significant amount of wax around and above it. I struggled to light it this morning before I read Imaoka's words. I first tried to pull out the charred wick but since it was already well burnt, it broke off. Then, I tried burning the wax around it using my matches, so that none of it will come out. I think I wasn't very successful.

In the end, I managed to light the candle. But the light was too small. The smallest light one could see from a candle. I couldn't see it if I don't look inside the tin can where the candle is on.

The light, however, reminded me of my faith in Jehovah and his organization, which I wrote about in my poem Motor. It reminded me of the process we all go through leading us to disbelief. In my poem, I expressed that if only I had even just a small kindle of faith back in 2011 I would've continued staying in that organization. But my faith as a young man was really depleted like this candle and its wick after going through that painful depression, committing a sin, and ultimately being stripped of my ministerial role in the congregation. It was an experience I never thought I would go through. At least not that early in my life.