Oil, Wax, and Matches

Author's Note

I wrote this poem quite awhile back, but I kept putting off writing an explanation.

If you didn't know, I am LDS. One thing that we do every year is something called #LightTheWorld. The point is to spread the idea that our religion is all about service, and it encourages members and others to focus on others more than themselves during the Christmas season.

The idea for the poem involving a candle stemmed from my induction into the NHS program at my first high school (my almond water XD). We were each given a candle that was lit for us to walk down the auditorium aisle with (if you didn't know, the lit candle is the symbol of the National Honors Society). I was watching the flame dance and I was remembering the other reason why I had written about a dancing fire (check out my other poem, Coat of Red) - I was at my first youth conference and was watching how the fire looked like a little being happily dancing around. The candle reminded me of that. As I walked down the aisle, everyone else was walking so fast that many of us had to hold our palms around our flames so they wouldn't go out before we reached the front row. I wanted to write a poem about that candle.

As I do with most poem ideas, I wrote one stanza and put the poem on the back burner for a few months until we were challenged to write a poem for #LightTheWorld in Sunday school. Both the NHS candle and the #LightTheWorld movement stood for service, so I thought it made sense to merge those ideas.

If you aren't familiar with the parables of the New Testament, one of my favorite parables, the parable of the 10 virgins, involves 10 women waiting to attend a wedding reception. Each of them carries an oil lamp. Half of the virgins brought extra oil, and half of them did not. Their lamps went out, and those who had brought extra oil did not have enough to share with those who had no more oil left, so the others had to find oil for themselves. Unfortunately, they missed the wedding. The point of the parable was to portray the idea of being prepared (specifically for the Second Coming, but if you don't believe in that, we're just going to stick with being prepared). The reason why I chose to connect the two is mainly because of my own personality. When I was little and we first learned about the parable, we did sort of a role-play. I was one of the virgins that was not prepared. I felt kind of upset and always remembered that - I wanted to be prepared so I could at least try and help others, even if I couldn't prepare for them. The oil in the parable represented one's testimony, and though I still know that I can't force anyone to maintain a testimony, I can encourage and teach them what I know.

Using this knowledge, let's see what you guys can assume what the meaning is. I don't like sharing everything, if you've read any of my poems.

Thanks for reading!

Stealthheart