Goodgoat once went to Taize. Through the daily prayers you go on a spiritual journey, reflection about self, laying things before God and then towards the end of the week you get given an unlit candle. Then at one point in the prayer service one candle is lit at the front of the church and then the person with that candle lights those around them and so on until the whole room is lit with the flames from all the candles.

I left the church, happy to have been given a light, a spirit, by God. This candle represented God within me, something of Him in my spirit.

A few minutes later someone asked me whether they could use my candle, I said “yes, of course” thinking that they wanted to relight their own, but instead I was mortified to see them produce a cigarette and light that from my candle – I can still feel the waves of shock in my system!

I felt that my spirit, my God-givenness had been used to bad ends – to light something that brings death and disease to people. I think there’s a link to sin here - the use of our time and talents to ends that are not what God would want us to do.