Connections Archive
Devotional: This may seem to be about lighthouses
08 March 2010
Dr Bruce Manners
Senior minister
Avondale College Seventh-day Adventist Church
What makes a lighthouse?
I pondered this recently when I visited the Cape Otway lighthouse on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It's a historical site that includes outer buildings, some restored, some in the process of restoration.
Once a place you'd have difficulty getting to, the lighthouse is now a tourist destination. The road in is sealed. You can buy souvenirs. There's an entry fee. You can even buy your lunch in a restaurant in one of the buildings.
The centrepiece, though, is the lighthouse. It's a classic-look lighthouse--a white, cylindrical building built to withstand wind and time; and it has done this well. Red numbers above the doorway indicate it was built more than 160 years ago, in 1848.
After climbing the circular staircase and going on to the observation deck to check the view and the wind velocity, I talked to the guide.
"Is this a working lighthouse?" I asked.
"Yes, it's a working lighthouse if you're asking if everything works and if it's ready for use," he replied. "All you have to do is switch it on. However, it isn't used."
"You don't need a lighthouse here any more?"
"Oh, yes, but we now use an automated, solar-powered unit in front of the lighthouse."
I hadn't even noticed it when I'd been on the observation deck. I went to have another look. There it was, way below, a small self-contained steel unit. The only relation it seemed to have to the "real" lighthouse was its colour--white. It seemed insignificant by comparison.
There's a sense of romance about an old-fashioned lighthouse. There's not much romance about a mechanical, automatic, solar-powered light.
Then again, is a lighthouse really a lighthouse if it doesn't produce light?
What makes a lighthouse? It's the light.
Back to the Connections Archive
