The Fire This Time, Part One
With all the wild fires we've been having in SoCal, we can be forgiven for thinking that the whole world has been burning down around us. Friends and relatives of mine back on the East Coast have thought that! They've called and written and otherwise wondered whether I was safe, and I've found myself responding that I live near the ocean... And I've wondered myself what I meant by that! Does it mean that I'd be able to run and jump in it to save myself? Such silliness...
But all of these places coming ablaze have reminded me of an odd juxtaposition I used to tell my parishioners whenever I was in trouble in the course of serving their churches-- which was quite often! On the one hand, there was that marvelous little book by Robert Fulgham (sp?), titled It was On Fire When I Laid Down on It. He was more famous for Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and that was truly a classic encapsulation of the wise way children can be. But I liked the On Fire book even better, for the absurdities of adult human logic.
The lead story was about a man whose house burnt down around him. The firefolks rescued him, and then tried to sort out how it happened. They suspected he had been smoking in bed, but he denied that. He said that, yes, the source of the fire might have been his mattress' burning, but-- and now you're getting it!-- he said, "it was on fire when I laid down on it!"
Along the same lines, there was a much more serious book called Young Men and Fire by a man whose name I've forgotten. (You are catching a glimpse of my household disarray. I can't seem to find the book at the moment. Good thing my mind, even more cluttered, does sometimes cough up a fact or idea or two!) But I do remember him to be the same man who wrote A River Runs Through It, so you can guess it was pretty good. It was about a wild fire that broke out in Montana in the '30's, I seem to recall.
Anyway, I learned somethings from that book. One of them was what to do when you're about to be surrounded and over-run by fire. Wild fires are almost impossible to out-run, and fire being what it is, sometimes lighting "back fires" can be its own danger, because, well, they can "back fire"... So what the book tells is what happened to a number of young men who were fighting this wicked blaze in MT. They were about to be overrun by the fire after the wind had shifted and blown it back at them. In the mountainous terrain, there was not going to be an easy escape. So the team leader lit a patch of ground around his men, and told them to lay down in it! Yes, to lay down in the fire...
Those who did, survived. Those who didn't, didn't outrun the wildfire and didn't survive...
So this business of it being on fire when I laid down on it can be positively saving.
In one of the fires outside San Diego it happened to work for a family. There was a story in the paper about four people (father & mother in their 70's, dtr in her 50's and her "boyfriend" in his 40's) whose property was getting overrun by fire and the fire department had failed to notify them of the danger and told them to evacuate. So they were stuck. What they did was drive their mini-van into a patch of clear field; they kept the motor running and turned up the air conditioning up, and stayed as cool as could be while the fire went around them and the thick smoke rolled over them. They lived to tell their tale!
I don't know that I would've taken shelter in a gasoline powered vehicle in order to survive a fire... but it worked for them! And maybe the principle is the same as laying down in the fire.
The point I used to make with my troubled congregations was that, maybe instead of always trying to put these congregational fires out, if we just stayed put, stay relaxed, and "lay down" in it, maybe we get protected by the Fire of the Holy Spirit and we get "baptized" by fire, and we have a deeper experience of the power of God.
...I know. The folks in my congregations weren't buyin' it either. Something about churches: they keep wanting to put the fire out... Laying down in the fire seldom if ever occurs to them!
And if it were a real fire, I don't know that I would have the courage to lay down in it either... I mean, I'm very good with figurative fires, but what the people all around us have experienced is awe-fully devastating...
Still, there is something from Young Men and Fire about making a "contrary" or "counter-intuitive" response to life-threatening circumstances that simply appeals to me. And if doing that contrary thing sounds as absurd to others as "it was on fire when I laid down on it," well, then, at least we can find ourselves joined in laughter!
Blessings!
But all of these places coming ablaze have reminded me of an odd juxtaposition I used to tell my parishioners whenever I was in trouble in the course of serving their churches-- which was quite often! On the one hand, there was that marvelous little book by Robert Fulgham (sp?), titled It was On Fire When I Laid Down on It. He was more famous for Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and that was truly a classic encapsulation of the wise way children can be. But I liked the On Fire book even better, for the absurdities of adult human logic.
The lead story was about a man whose house burnt down around him. The firefolks rescued him, and then tried to sort out how it happened. They suspected he had been smoking in bed, but he denied that. He said that, yes, the source of the fire might have been his mattress' burning, but-- and now you're getting it!-- he said, "it was on fire when I laid down on it!"
Along the same lines, there was a much more serious book called Young Men and Fire by a man whose name I've forgotten. (You are catching a glimpse of my household disarray. I can't seem to find the book at the moment. Good thing my mind, even more cluttered, does sometimes cough up a fact or idea or two!) But I do remember him to be the same man who wrote A River Runs Through It, so you can guess it was pretty good. It was about a wild fire that broke out in Montana in the '30's, I seem to recall.
Anyway, I learned somethings from that book. One of them was what to do when you're about to be surrounded and over-run by fire. Wild fires are almost impossible to out-run, and fire being what it is, sometimes lighting "back fires" can be its own danger, because, well, they can "back fire"... So what the book tells is what happened to a number of young men who were fighting this wicked blaze in MT. They were about to be overrun by the fire after the wind had shifted and blown it back at them. In the mountainous terrain, there was not going to be an easy escape. So the team leader lit a patch of ground around his men, and told them to lay down in it! Yes, to lay down in the fire...
Those who did, survived. Those who didn't, didn't outrun the wildfire and didn't survive...
So this business of it being on fire when I laid down on it can be positively saving.
In one of the fires outside San Diego it happened to work for a family. There was a story in the paper about four people (father & mother in their 70's, dtr in her 50's and her "boyfriend" in his 40's) whose property was getting overrun by fire and the fire department had failed to notify them of the danger and told them to evacuate. So they were stuck. What they did was drive their mini-van into a patch of clear field; they kept the motor running and turned up the air conditioning up, and stayed as cool as could be while the fire went around them and the thick smoke rolled over them. They lived to tell their tale!
I don't know that I would've taken shelter in a gasoline powered vehicle in order to survive a fire... but it worked for them! And maybe the principle is the same as laying down in the fire.
The point I used to make with my troubled congregations was that, maybe instead of always trying to put these congregational fires out, if we just stayed put, stay relaxed, and "lay down" in it, maybe we get protected by the Fire of the Holy Spirit and we get "baptized" by fire, and we have a deeper experience of the power of God.
...I know. The folks in my congregations weren't buyin' it either. Something about churches: they keep wanting to put the fire out... Laying down in the fire seldom if ever occurs to them!
And if it were a real fire, I don't know that I would have the courage to lay down in it either... I mean, I'm very good with figurative fires, but what the people all around us have experienced is awe-fully devastating...
Still, there is something from Young Men and Fire about making a "contrary" or "counter-intuitive" response to life-threatening circumstances that simply appeals to me. And if doing that contrary thing sounds as absurd to others as "it was on fire when I laid down on it," well, then, at least we can find ourselves joined in laughter!
Blessings!
posted by TRXTR | 9:59 AM
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