Public invited to bring lantern, share flame with others
With the ongoing war in the Middle East, a Christmastime tradition that began decades ago is taking a different tack this year. However, the Bethlehem Peace Light that annually originates in Israel will still be in Ellijay, and the public is invited to attend an informal distribution of the flame this Saturday, Dec. 21, at Hope Lutheran Church at 10 a.m.
The church is located at 3295 Old Highway 5 South. Pastor David Smedley explained how it’s happened during past Christmas seasons.
“It’s a Boy Scout troop in Austria that for years has been collecting the flame in the Holy Land, bringing it back up to Austria and then sending it out,” he said of the symbol of the light of Christ. “It’s the birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, and they have a light there that’s been burning for hundreds of years. (That birthplace) is shaped like an amphitheater, and there’s a stairwell that goes down into a cave with a chapel that is underground.”
Scouts have used a special lantern to collect the flame, and then flown back to Austria with it. From there, it takes flight to New York City and is distributed around the country; a Scout leader from Big Canoe, a resort development in north Pickens County, has brought it back to the chapel there for regional distribution. One of the destinations has been Ellijay.
“Carl Lundstrom is with the Boy Scouts at Big Canoe, and in the last few years, he’s collected it and brought it right up here to the church,” Smedley noted. “But this year, the Boy Scouts from Austria are not able to go because of the war. The flame we have here in our eternal candle on the wall (at Hope Lutheran) has been burning all yearlong, and so we still have the flame that we collected last year, and that’s the flame we’ll be distributing again on Dec. 21.”
People from several churches have attended in the past to collect the flame and share it through the Christmas season. A lot of people will bring a lantern or similar device to carry the flame, and everyone is welcome, he added. The Boy Scouts of Troop 20 in Big Canoe have been responsible for getting the flame to the north Georgia mountains for almost 10 years (see sidebar article).
“It’s so cool to have that flame that has traveled about a third of the way around the world and that is burning in our sanctuary, and it comes from the spot where Jesus was born,” Smedley said. “Bring something this Saturday that you can carry back to your home or your church.”
For more information, contact Pastor Smedley at 404-226-6833.
The rambling route of the Peace Light
Phil Lundstrom, Scoutmaster of Troop 20 in Big Canoe that has helped distribute the Bethlehem Peace Light in north Georgia, was asked how the flame is being transported this Christmas season since Austrian Boy Scouts cannot collect it in Bethlehem.
“As you can imagine, people all across the country (involved with the Peace Light) were trying to decide, ‘OK, what are we going to do this year?’” he affirmed. “Interestingly, in the COVID year, the Peace Light did not make it from Austria to America. So a few of us decided we should probably keep it going in a few places (year-round), and some places are more capable and more interested than others, like David (Smedley, pastor of Hope Lutheran Church in Ellijay).”
This year, a “Scouter” in Austin, Texas, traveled to another location in the Lone Star State to collect the flame from a lady who has kept it burning in a lantern in her home since 2015, Lundstrom said. The man then drove his truck to distribute the flame through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, across the Panhandle of Florida to Jacksonville and up through Georgia to Nashville, Tenn., and then to Arkansas.
“I think he’s back in Texas now,” reported Lundstrom. “So when he was coming up through Georgia (on Dec. 12), I met him in Adairsville, and traded a Peace Light flame into my lantern from his lantern. I brought it to my home now in Big Canoe, and I’m going to keep it going here locally.”
Scouts help distribute the flame at Big Canoe Chapel the last two weekends before Christmas. Lundstrom, who took the flame to a Lawrenceville church where people from 50 other churches collected it, said the Peace Light is dedicated each year at a huge ceremony in Vienna, Austria.
“They all light their lanterns and hop on trains and go back to little towns all over Europe,” he said. The ritual takes place on the third Sunday in Advent.
“On that weekend before Christmas, people come to a central part of their little town and bring their candles and light them with the Peace Light and keep that going through Christmas,” said Lundstrom. “We’re trying to follow the same pattern here.”