The Fascination of Fire

       How often have you sat in front of a fire and just gazed into the flames as they danced and flickered,  sparked and hissed and sang?   Think of the millions of people through countless centuries who have done this very thing in all sorts of settings:  the beach, the deep woods, caves, dens, and livingrooms, to name a few.   Fire watching seems to  be a universal fascination.  I know it puts me into what some might call "an altered state,"  and one I am quite fond of.  Time stops. My thoughts slow down and even recede into stillness.  I never tire of watching the never ending, always changing dance of light and shadow, and the way the form of the flames transforms as it consumes whatever it is burning.  

     Contained in a fire place, stove, or circle of stones at a campsite,  fire provides beauty and warmth, and a focus for gathering, singing, stories, and bonding with others.   Uncontained and roaring through a dry forest or a row of buildings in a city,  it is devastating and fearful.   Fire has fired the mythic imagination of the human race,  which realizes both the danger and great gift that fire is.   

     One of my favorite fire stories is the one in Exodus in the Hebrew Scriptures about Moses meeting God in the burning bush which is aflame, yet not consumed.   Christian mystics in the Eastern Orthodox tradition composed ecstatic devotional hymns to Mother Mary as the Burning Bush,  a sign of a human being aflame with God's Presence, yet not consumed by it.

People like that light up our world with Divine Fire, the Flames of Pentecost,  a burning Divine Love that consumes human sinfulness without destroying human being.  Rather, it is a Holy Fire that consumes the dross in our natures, leaving only the Gold of our true selves, Image of God.   The experience of that holy burning some call hell.   I prefer to think of it as purgatory--a purging that is the activity of Divine Love and Grace.  

      We need more Burning Bushes!  I think that's why I painted one as a mandala a few years ago.  It hangs here in our house in the den opposite the fireplace, reminding me every day of Holy Fire.