Tuesday evenings means Taize services at the little Methodist church around the block from us. There were only four people there tonight, including the pastor; but it is a deeply spiritual experience. This is the church just after the service concluded. The larger candle on the table in front of the altar is flanked by the small tealights each of us brought up during the service; they represent our prayers. Old Photo with Accented Edges puts the focus on the sanctuary and the candles.

Today was the third Sunday of Advent. In the old days, it was called Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin meaning, "to rejoice." The priest would wear rose colored vestments, one of only two Sundays that this happened. Gaudete Sunday was a way of reminding us--before Christmas displays and ads were up just after Halloween--that the penetential waitig season of Advent was coming to a close, and Christmas was nearing. We light three candles on the Advent wreath, the thrid one being the pink one to symbolize Joy. This is the Advent wreath at our church. Cutout reduced it to its essential elements--the candles, the colors, the flames and the wreath.

I'll be honest--it was a long, weary day, and there just weren't any photo ops, so I made one; and it really isn't that great. But it's the not-so-good photos that can benefit most from filters, and this one took wel to lots of different filters and combinations of filters. I could have sat here all night experimenting with them--but I was reminded by my daughter that her homework trumps my playing with photos. So I settled (prematurely to my mind, but I was the one who made the homework rule...) on a combination of Fresco and Poster Edges, which gives it a sort of pen and ink/water color look.

When I was growing up, Catholic churches had arrays of votive candles in front of statues of the Blessed Mother and various saints. If you had a special intention, you'd slip your money (a dime was the standard donation for a small candle, an unfathomable amount--probably a quarter--for the large ones) into the slot in a metal box on the front of the rack. Then you'd pull a long wooden stick out of anothebox that was full of sand. You'd say a prayer, light the stick from one of the burning candles, then light your chosen candle and extinguish the stick in the sand. It was all very solemn and filled with mystery. The churches smelled sweetly of beeswax.

It was a fire hazard. One of the side altars at my childhood church was badly damaged in a fire started by one of the votive candles. It seems also that this sort of devotion fell out of favor. Few Catholic churches in our area have votive candles at all. A few years ago, the church in our town installed electric candles. I'm actually not sure how they work, but I guess you put you money in the slot and one of the candles goes on for a certain period of time. To me, it lacks the mystique of real flame and beeswax. This is a picture of the new style "candles." I used a combination of

Smudge Stick and Accented Edges which seems to bring out the plastic element of the pseudo-candles.