During every holiday trip, my mom and dad will light a candle in some church they encounter. A few days ago, they lit a candle in St Patrick’s Cathedral in Auckland, New Zealand. To be grateful for our family and everything we have.

So why a church?

It’s hard to say how religious they (or ‘we’) still are. I think ‘believing’ is something you do in a community, as a village or a neighborhood. Even though we (our family, our friends, our neighbors) were brought up religiously, I’m sure most of us no longer believe in an eternal supreme being; a god to pray to. But it’s also stupid to reduce religion to just that. We’ve all grown up in that kind of culture, the lessons, ethics, and traditions of a Christian society, and there’s moral value in those teachings. But come the 2020s, I think we’ve mostly learned not to take the Bible literally. That however, is not the end of religion.

Religion in the first place isn’t about culture, but about the mystery of life, of which we ourselves are an expression. Even though we’ve slowly removed ourselves from the church, that mystery and the exploration of it still remains.

So again, why a church, and a candle? I’m just guessing here, because I haven’t asked my parents. But for one because it’s silent and you can come there for some introspection. Some prayers you whisper not to a god, but tell yourself in a moment of quietness. Also, churches are usually a place that always has candles available, and light.

(We’ve also taken up this tradition, here’s our candle in Aubel, Belgium.)