Rows of decorated paper bags with candles inside.

They're called "luminaries." I looked up the definition of the word and a rough translation is, "a light that shines from heaven."

A lot of heavenly lights shone in my home town on Saturday. Our county cancer support group hosted an event. People were encouraged to decorate paper bag luminaries in honor of loved ones -- the lost, those still fighting, and those who have won their battles and regained their health -- and display them on Main Street. Once the bags were properly distributed, people walked the circuit, a slow motion marathon that included everyone from babies in strollers to elderly men in wheelchairs, with lots of pleasant conversation. The bags made a corridor that stretched up, across and back down the other side of the street the length of a whole city block -- and this in a county populated by around 5,000 people.

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An incredible amount of work went into this project. None of it by me, by the way.

There were a few reasons for that. It was one of those weekends for us -- I had to give a speech, we were babysitting our granddaughter, and our son and his fiancée came over to talk wedding plans. I had firewood to cut and we had about three bushels of tomatoes that we planned to turn into spaghetti sauce, so we were plenty busy.

But you know, everyone's busy. Every person involved in this event gave time that could've easily been spent in half a dozen different ways.

There were other reasons I wasn't involved. I'm usually not much on symbolism (or walking for that matter). I'm not artistic enough to make an attractive luminary, and, truthfully, my handwriting is so bad that even if I just wrote a name on a bag, there'd be no guarantee that anyone would be able to read it. The group raised some money, but there are easier ways to do it.

I wanted to support the efforts, mainly because I am intensely fond of some of the people who did the planning and preparation. It goes without saying that it's the sort of thing that any rational human being supports, but I had plenty of reasons why it wasn't really a priority for me.

Yeah, what an idiot.

It's somehow reassuring to realize that I've maintained my ability to be completely, mind-numbingly wrong about some things; it just shows a consistency that should be admired. The "Walk of Hope" was tremendously valuable and starkly emotional. To walk down that long corridor, between those rows of luminaries, to read the name on each bag and know almost every one...it was almost more than I could take. I saw the name of my son's best friend, four members of my wife's immediate family, close friends, neighbors and relatives -- an onslaught of memories.

At dusk when volunteers went from bag to bag to light the candles, the growing, flickering glow produced a spectacle that was as gorgeous as it was heart-breaking. And that was before the announcer began reading each name out loud.

A delicate flame contained within a fragile paper bag, each one representing a life -- when you think about it, the symbolism alone is powerful beyond words.

We're busy people, each and every one of us, and it's tempting and easy to simply write a check for a worthy cause and call it good enough.

But it isn't.

Copyright 2009 Brent Olson