Monday, October 14, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Fire
As a twelve year old I took out the trash and burned it on my own. Mom trusted me, and she didn’t want to do it. We lived in the country, and there were no rules about burning garbage.
In Urbana we have a fire box that I fill and then overfill and then pile branches alongside it, and then I burn that bunch of branches on my own. Margaret trusts me, and she doesn’t want to do it. The rules require that the fire be contained in the firebox, so eventually it is. When there’s no wind and the sky is blue and it’s a quiet morning, making fire beckons me.
Miles and Jasper loved fire books and fire trucks. Andi made cookies for the firemen, and they visited the fire station regularly. Their mutual aspirations leaned toward putting out fires for a living. We went sometimes too, Margaret and I. I met the local fire dog, a beautiful Dalmatian, who licked my face. Soon after that he died, but I doubt I had anything to do with it.
God told Noah he would never send another flood, but that there would be fire next time. James Baldwin took that into his classic book title, writing with anger and revenge on his mind about how his black people had been treated in America. It was a wonderful book. Very few white people read it, or cared enough about the other race, except to express their sympathies.
The Sufi dancer’s fire in the belly, Ron Rolheiser’s fire in the soul, Baldwin’s fire next time – all these thoughtful folks fired up about fire. Not for it to become an idol, but without it they see we aren’t much besides a sodden mass of ashes, drying out slowly before the next rain.
While I was burning the branches my leg got very hot. I shouldn’t have been wearing shorts. My arm got hotter still. I should have put on a long-sleeved shirt. That fire was about to catch me up with it, along with all that wood. Once my friend Kathe’s hair caught on fire, after we lit a candle in the Valparaiso girls’ dorm public room and leaned into it. Oh my goodness!
She screamed, and I screamed, and we put out the fire very quickly, or she would have lost her head. I won’t forget that moment with Kathe, who now lives in San Francisco and chants and sings and probably uses fire in ways I can’t imagine, but would enjoy and participate it if I could.
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
My favorite verse takes me up into the air, allows me to look around and see the balloonist’s perspective on the world, hearing the dogs bark and the farm folks shout, pointing up at the bright red bubble in the sky. Decades ago living in Wisconsin we received a balloon from Tracy Barnes at Balloon Works, built a trailer to pull behind our red Volkswagen Beetle, and found meadows around Madison where we could inflate that beautiful thing. Everyone wanted to help hold it down, and then let it go.
At a winter festival on the ice of Lake Wisconsin, too many held it down and then let go all at once, and the balloon nearly burst from the pressure rising into the thin air. It took me into the clouds before I knew it, and until I descended I thought fog had filled the air and I would be lost. I floated over an old ammunitions plant and wondered if I’d be shot down. Friendly fire? Maybe not so friendly. Anyway, I made it home eventually, rescued by our chase crew, with not even an air traffic ticket from the United States Military Police.
This generation seeks a sign but no sign will be given it except the sign of Jonah.
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, and I’ve floated in the air wondering if I’d ever come down. All these years, seeking signs, watching for them and hoping for them, asking God for them. Am I OK? Are you going to rescue any of us in this world? What are you thinking about today, Lord? I don’t have a clue most of the time … only when God appears beside me in the balloon basket, or provides a shirt to snuff out fire in Kathe’s hair, or seems to show himself barely visible in the flames, like a shadow of fire within the fire.
Jonah hated his Ninevites, and God sent him there to minister to them. He spent several days angry at God, asking to die. God asked Jonah to have a little sympathy for those people, and even for their cattle. What had they ever done to deserve even one of the sufferings you imagine I should impose on them?
At our prison retreats the fine country singer who led our music often sang “Why Me, Lord?” Kris Kristofferson, author of that song, died just a few days ago. Perhaps he met Jonah, up there in the far reaches of heaven. Kris might have sung his song and asked Jonah to join him.
Lord, help me Jesus, I’ve wasted it so, help me Jesus, I know what I am. Now that I know that I’ve needed you so, help me Jesus, my soul’s in your hand.
 (Galatians 4, Psalm 113, Psalm 95, Luke 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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