Candles are an amazingly rich source of metaphors.
They show up in common sayings, such as “better to light a candle
than curse the darkness” (which is itself of debated origin, often
given as an old Chinese proverb
but
possibly dating to a written sermon by an American preacher
published in 1907), and are a popular form of imagery as well as a
focus for meditation or hypnosis. I doubt this is the first candle
metaphor for Quaker spirituality, but it is the one I am given.
The gathered meeting is a table of candles, much
as one might find in some churches. Each of us is a candle, stood
shoulder to shoulder with the others, wax and wick and flame.
