Smoke and Wonder

Tonight the neighbor across the street built a fire.  While I never saw as much as a flicker of flame, it mesmerized me. 

A fall evening is one of my favorites.  Being at home for an evening also strikes my fancy (maybe because it doesn’t happen so often).  When I get both (fall evening and night at home), it’s a treasured thing.  Tonight, I got both. 

To enjoy this wonder, I went on a stroll through the neighborhood.  That’s when I saw the fire.  Or, kinda saw the fire.  As I crested the small hill near our place, I literally stopped stock-still in my shoes.  Across the street was a glimpse of glory.  Smoke from the neighbor’s fire was floating into the nearby pasture and colliding with the low-lying afternoon sun that was streaming through the trees.  This collision created a magical land of color-tinted mist.  It was breathtaking.  It truly was.  The outline of trees, the long fence-line, the silhouette of the house and barn – everything added to this picture of pure wonder.

I didn’t want to miss the view, so I decided to mow the lawn so I could enjoy it a little longer.

And I thought about how perspective changes things.  Being too close to smoke burns the eyes like Dixie.  But standing back, it creates something that stops me in my tracks.  Fire destroys; really, it signifies death, but from a distance, it can create a masterpiece of a show. 

And I thought about fires in life.  I thought of sorrow, fear, poverty, death, loneliness, sickness, pain, hurt, rejection, fractured relationships – the list could go on and on.  Up close, the fire burns and burns and seems to kill and destroy.  But what if the smoke is creating a bit of what I saw tonight?  What if it’s a showcase of hope to the passerby? 

I want that to be true of my fires. 

And then I thought of all the good things about fire.  About how one of my favorite things on earth is a circle of chairs filled with people I love around a blazing fire.  A time of friendship, communion, joy, relationship.  Can the smoke from my relationships, my joys, my mountaintops also create a thing of beauty that directs those around it to the Maker of this beauty?

I want that, too.  In joy and in pain, in sickness and in health (sounds like marriage vows), may the smoke from the fires of my life be carried on the wind and collide with His light to create beauty. 

Perspective changes my feelings about fire.  

Fare Thee Well

Sometimes cows have it so nice. 

Like when they want to swat away unwelcome flies that hover, they use their handy tails. 

Today, I wish I had a tail, and that with one mighty swing, I could send an unwelcome guest packing. 

It’s the age old friend and foe: change. 

For months now, I’ve smelled it brewing.  Its whisper has been in the air, announcing its arrival.  And today, it came. 

I don’t do change well.  I am emotional and I attach easily.  Two things that do not mix well with “the big c word.”

I am blessed enough to have a life filled with fine people.  People who make my life rich.  And good.  And hard sometimes.  And right now, it seems as if so many of them are in a time of transition, of change.  And it’s hard for me to let go. 

I’m grateful to be an employee at a place that is so much more than just a job.  One thing that makes it that way is the people I work with.  They have become my companions, my comrades.  We invest together.  Laugh together.  Play together.  Conflict together.    It’s a lot of together. 

And today, the together part changed.  We send a few people on to other horizons next year; today was a last day of what we know.  We laughed at corny old jokes, retold the same favorite stories, and made goals of what we’ll do next.  And suddenly, it was time to say goodbye.  And nobody knew how.

I just wished for a tail.  I want to swat this all away. 

Oh, but I can’t. 

Other changes loom.  Key people in my life moving on.  Some changes are behind me, but still sting.  Five months ago, I bid farewell to my roommate of three and a half years, and I did not fare so well through it all. 

We all face it, over and over, again and again.  Looking back over the past ten years of my life, it is riddled with it.  Adios, farewell, so long, adieu.  And with every farewell to every chapter, it feels like I leave behind people who I care about.  People I can’t do together with anymore. 

Tonight, I listened to Ellie Holcomb drone out the words of Scripture . . . Comfort one another with these words, we shall always be with the Lord . . . and this promise hit me in a new way.  I remember moving home from Thailand, leaving people of my heart an ocean away, when the idea of fully realizing God’s presence and being together with friends and sages from the ages became the sweetest thought to me.  I think I learned to long for heaven more over that change.  But tonight, being reminded of that promise opened my eyes to another Truth – as followers of Christ, we can enjoy this together that we love so well even before the sweet-by-and-by.  We follow the same Jesus.  It keeps us together from afar.  We sit at the feet of the same Lord.  Some more together.  There is a common denominator here – it’s Him. 

Paul the Apostle said it so well: “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” 

Maybe one of those all-things he’s talking about is the family of God.  I like that.  A lot. 

So, I may moan and groan when change comes around, but I guess I don’t need a tail to swat it away.  Because I serve a God who doesn’t need to keep His whole family in the same room to keep them together.  He doesn’t even need to have us all on the same continent. 

That thought, I can fare well with.