Stories of Kindness from Around the World

I've got this friend, Rachel. She's a bit older than me, with a sort of shy, but radiant smile. She's usually tan, as she loves the outdoors and spends as much time outside as possible. No matter the weather. In the winter, she'll often go for walks outside. In the summer, she'll sit in public parks strumming her guitar, reading, or napping on the grass.  She has the leisure to do these things because, suffering from multiple psychological traumas, she is unable to work. Well, unable to work in a "normal" workplace, that is. Because she does work. Her vocation is 'making' candles.

She buys ready-made candles, usually the slightly translucent kind where the body of the candle will radiate the light, too. Then she puts designs on them by hand, working for hours at a time in her kitchen. She literally makes hundreds--if not a thousand--of these in a year. And then, she gives most of them away. She gifts them to visitors, but she also donates them in whole batches to places or people who will gift them to others.

She loves hearing stories of how one of her candles ended up some place far away, or in a church, or a spiritual center. But really, it's mainly her way of spreading love in the world. Did I mention she lives off welfare? I stopped buying tea candles two years ago when I learned that being able to buy them by the hundreds at really low rates was only possible through deforestation. But my home never lacks candle light, as every few months, Rachel will invite me to take my pick among her candles.


"Are you sure you don't want another one?" She always asks, prodding me to take a bigger batch than my modesty would have allowed me. As a person and friend, Rachel is nearly always willing to listen to me. She'll find the positive side to whatever I tell her, without being naive or clumsy about it. I'm really happy she and I got to be friends. I wish actions like hers-- done with such gentle, deliberate, and kind intentions-- were more valued in society. 

I'm sure there are many people out there like her. Many people bringing light to this world, the way she does: One candle at a time.