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A Brief Candle (Part 2)

 

 
 For years, I have lived with “personally minded” individuals in churches who genuinely believed that if they blew out my candle then their candles would burn brighter.

My book, For Pastors Only: Dealing with Rejection in Ministry, is a memoir of my life centered around the theme of rejection. How to cope with it.  How to deal with it.  How to overcome it.  How to learn from it.  Even how to benefit from it to help others through negative life experiences.

Two selections of George Bernard Shaw’s insights on life are combined into a literary piece called “A  Splendid Torch”.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only real tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base.

In a later speech, Shaw added to his perception of life:

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."


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