John Ruskin (1819-1900), the English art critic and social reformer, loved to tell the tale of the lamplighter. As a boy, Ruskin, would often look out from his bedroom window to watch the street lamps being lit around the town. The “lamplighter” would carry his lighted lamp on top of a special pole and would move from one lamppost to the next throughout the town. As darkness began to fall, Ruskin would lose sight of the lamplighter but he could always tell where he was and where he had been because of the trail of bright lights he left behind him.

Jesus said, “You are the light of the world… don’t put your lamp under a bowl… instead let your light shine” (Matthew 5:13-16). We should be ‘lamplighters’ shining in this dark world, leaving a trail of lights burning behind us and seeking always to leave a place brighter for having visited.