A friend has called to report on her vacation in Italy. This woman, whom I will call Janet, went there with some members of her family for three weeks in June. They stayed in the countryside but visited Florence and other cities in Tuscany as well. During this, her first sojourn among Italians, she was taken by the beauty of the country and the marvels of its artistic heritage.

Janet also confided a secret to me. This secret was a small action that she took on a kind of impulse. It was the first time in her life she had done such a thing. Even now, she is amazed at what came over her and she feels half apologetic about her action.

What she did was light a candle in a church. Two factors moved Janet to do so: first, she was moved by the atmosphere of simple piety in the church, the art and the people who came there to pray; secondly, her thoughts often turned to a sick friend back home, a woman with a life-threatening illness. So, as a kind of silent prayer for that friend she lit the candle, as many other people do.

Lighting a candle does not seem anything notable, people do it all the time. Yes, but for Janet this was no ordinary act. She considers herself an agnostic as she has for much of her adult life. She does not deny God’s existence or that of a world beyond this one but she has no confidence anything can be known about this subject. Though she is a person with high moral standards, they are not based on an ethic derived from faith.

She thus regards it as quite extraordinary to have found herself doing something that is normally associated with believers and with pious believers at that.  That she should have done what simple people of faith are accustomed to doing still strikes her as amazing.

How could this have happened? Could it have been a moment of revelation, a precious time when a person becomes suddenly aware that reality goes far beyond what we can see and touch?

Of course, no one really knows. But many people of faith would find the desire to light the candle a sign of the divine presence. They would interpret the impulse as a gift of the Spirit that leads a person to live on a higher level.

Almost certainly Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a revered New York-based spiritual leader who died in 1972, would have agreed. He once wrote: “There is no human being who does not carry a treasure in his soul, a moment of insight, a memory of love, a dream of excellence, a call to worship.”

The five spiritual gifts mentioned by the rabbi can be seen manifested in the action taken by Janet. Her soul was stirred, suggesting a richness in her inner life. The moment of insight came upon her suddenly, without warning, as she found herself in a sacred space. The memory of her ailing friend reminded her of the love that they felt for one another. Perhaps she felt some kind of aspiration toward a divine excellence. And, finally, she may have felt stirred to light the candle in recognition of a higher reality.

This one event may not prove strong enough to change Janet’s life forever. However, it may. At the very least it seems likely that she will remember the moment, reflect upon it from time to time, and perhaps find continuing inspiration in it.

That’s the way it was for me when, some fifty years ago, I felt myself to have received a sign of God’s reality. At the time, I was walking in a cemetery, in a beautiful setting featuring hills forming a giant bowl, and flowers in profusion in the nearby gardens. There, suddenly, without warning, I felt hit by the realization, not only that God was the deepest reality of life, but that I would always remember the moment. In fact, I have done so, now and at many other times.

There is no guarantee, of course, that what happened to me then was authentic. But, still, the sudden realization has stayed with me and has enriched my spiritual life. For my friend Janet too, I hope that her lighting of the candle will have permanent good effects. I would be happy if this became for her a privileged moment to which she can keep returning spiritually and find in it a source of richness, pressed down and flowing over.

Richard Griffin