Pastor Cecil Williams, who served the Glide Memorial Methodist Church in San Francisco for 35 years, tells of growing up in Texas. They didn't have electric lights in their house. They had two oil lamps with wicks that had to be lit daily. Once they were lit, a glass shade fit over the flame and they glowed.

Cecil's mother kept telling her children, "Ya'll clean the shade before you put it over the lamp. If you don't, you won't get as much light." Young Cecil didn't like cleaning the lampshades. It took a long time and lots of elbow grease to scour off the sticky, gray soot. But when the shade was clean, one lamp would be bright enough to light up the whole living room.

Back then, cleaning the lamp shades was Cecil's job. He couldn't ask his brother or his sister to do his job for him. If he took a day off, everybody could tell. The light would be dim. Cecil Williams says he has discovered that what was true back then about lamp cleaning is also true about life. "Neither you nor I can ask anybody else to clean up our lives. My life belongs to me, and your life belongs to you. I have to clean my life daily or my light won't shine; so do you."