Setting Fire...

January 31, 2014

Dear Ones,

Setting Fire…

   I sit here on the floor of my room near full length windows that look like they should be made of frosted glass the fog/smog outside is so incredibly thick this Lunar New Year’s morning that though I can hear fireworks all around I cannot see any of them.  My “magic socks” keeping my toes toasty warm and the coffee in my cup sipped down keeps getting lower and I am reminded that a fresh pot might be in order soon.  A quilt snuggled around me keeps me warm but I am missing something, a good fire place with warmth radiating from the blaze and the cozy of a hearth where you can inch closer and closer with your back to the heat and your knees pulled up to your chest.  I am telling you I don’t care what they say the Fireplace App is just not the same as the real thing- crackles or not.  What about a fireplace makes you feel all cozy and warm, like home?  I am not just meaning because we hang the stockings from the mantle but somehow it symbolizes warmth, protection from the cold, the place for gathering, for cooking, for sipping cocoa and coffee.  Maybe that is because I grew up in a family where fireplaces were part of everyday winter, guys out chopping wood in the summer  stacking it up high in perfect rows, meant the stoves and hearths would keep the houses cozy warm on the cold days.  The farm house kitchen with its stove pipe glowing hot red with Grandpa teasing us all that Santa would never make it down his chimney and we believed him because we heard the sound of the stove door opening and closing in the wee hours of the morning making sure to keep the wood on so that the big open kitchen and living room would be warm and welcoming on a frosty morning.   

  Fire, I have thinking about it a lot these days.  Partly because I am missing home where with dipping temperatures and icy conditions our South Carolina family fire place is getting used for more than just decorative candles.    Fire can be beautiful like the blaze in the family room, or the awe that we all have in watching fireworks explode in their colors and flares of popping sparkles.  We are amazed at its beauty the blue, gold, purple, orange, red, white hot of it, we are cautious and fearful of it, knowing that a spark in the wrong place could cost us life or property and yet it is such a part of everyday.  I see the prison coal man each morning as he shovels the coal into the fire of the coal house to send heat into the prison and guard houses, I see the woman next door with her cooking pots for laundry, the fire sending steam and boiling bubbly warm everywhere.  I see fireworks exploding in the night sky; I see and hear of places on the news devastated by the effects of fires out of control.  I feel the heat of burning coals as I stretch out a skewer of marshmallows over the bonfire, family gathered together around the glowing ring of fire.  I see burns on a child and scars left from the healing, the blisters of pain brought by the heat of a flame, and I hear myself singing in worship… “Set a fire down in my soul that I can’t contain that I can’t control, I want more of you God I want more of you God.”  I think about my God who appears in the burning bush a fire that did not consume but that drew to Himself, a cloud of flames in a desert land leading a people to freedom, a Holy fire, flames resting on head.  Fire- all consuming, warming, awesome, terrifying, blazing in the night, burning sacrifices, a fragrant smoke, a pleasing aroma, a strike of judgment, a place to prepare a meal of welcome and hospitality.  One tiny piece of creation, a flame representing so much in our lives and  as I consider all that I see around me I must ask, are we really ready for it to set a fire down in our souls?  Are we ready for this all-consuming fire to burn away the chaff, the wood, hay, and stubble, to purify the gold, to bring forth from the flames the priceless and permanent? 

  Maybe it is because this is the start of a New year here or maybe I am just cold and dreaming of home fires that are kept burning for me but as I walk these days feeling a little lonelier than I have before I cannot help but consider the fire that He has set in my heart and the fire that He is choosing to use to warm me from the inside out. 

Grace to each of you “Xin Nian Kaui Le!”

Mariah