Is it really dark?
Or have you just grown used to
florescent lighting?
Sitting at a coffee shop, trying my hardest to get some homework done, I cannot help but ease drop on the group of college students preparing for their mission trip to Japan this summer. It is hard to ignore the group of 7 huddling together in prayer, crying a bit, and flashing their promotional powerpoint straight in my direction. I guess it could maybe be inspirational. They are obviously passionate about their mission. They probably feel a strong desire to improve the lives (afterlives?) of people who they have never met. However, I am not inspired. I cannot stop reading this powerpoint they are flashing around the coffee shop. I think I have read this quote with a puzzled expression about ten times:
"I have but one candle to burn, and I would rather burn it our in a land filled with darkness than a land flooded with light." -John Keith Falconer
Is Japan really flooded with darkness? So dark that they need your Christian, upper-middle class candle to brighten the place up? Japan is pretty advanced; I am not sure that they feel like they need your candle. What makes our light so much better than others that we need to spread it around to people that probably don't feel like they need any more light. If you want to help others, to give others a better life, do it because you are compassionate about their suffering, not because you have a brighter candle than them.
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