Fire and Ash

On sunny days at certain seasons, rays of sunlight will pass through the stained glass windows behind the altar of St. Peter's Church and land in columns of color on the wall during the worship service.  I love gazing at the stripes of gemstone colors - something beautiful on which to fix my eyes while singing or listening or praying.

Last week the effect was particularly striking, and one patch of color gathered up the reds and cast upon the wall  a slender tongue of flame some three feet tall.  It was stunningly beautiful, and my first thought was of the tongues of flame at Pentecost.  "They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." (Acts 2:3)  I kept hoping that the priest or an acolyte or somebody would walk between me and that tongue of flame, so that it would look like fire had come to rest on them.  Alas, I was disappointed, and after 10 or 15 minutes the position of the sun changed and the fire was gone except in memory.

But it has proved a potent memory, one I keep going back to, perhaps because Ash Wednesday is nearly upon us.  In the Ash Wednesday liturgy, we are reminded that we are formed from dust, and ashes are marked on the forehead with the words, "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  The contrast of fire and ash is so very rich...

The creation story in Genesis tells how God created Adam from the dust of the earth.  God formed Adam, but he was not alive until God breathed into him the spark of life.  What's the different between "ash" and "Adam?" The difference is the presence of "Life" - God's holy fire, the spark the makes the difference between a dead sculpture and a living human being.

Ordinary fire consumes.  Fuel is required to maintain the blaze, and when the fuel runs out, the fire goes out, leaving nothing but charred, dead ash.  God's fire, however, burns without consuming, without destroying, like the time when God appeared to Moses in a burning bush.  "There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up." (Exodus 3:2)

Our passions are often described as fire, and its in our passions that the difference between natural fire and God's Holy fire is, I think, most evident.  Natural passions consume us.  They must be fed or they die, burning us up (and burning us out) in the process!  How many lives have been ruined trying to maintain a passion at all costs?   Charlie Sheen is in the headlines now for the flaming wreck he's made of his life by pursuing his various "passions."  But how many others have burned themselves up away from the public eye, pursuing more "noble" passions of career, children, hobby, wealth, beauty, health, and on and on and on.

The passions God gives us - the ones that are focused on God, motivated by God's love of us, fueled by awe of Him - those passions will set us ablaze without being consumed.  Much like Jesus at the Transfiguration, God's light will shine forth from us like spiritual fire, giving light and life to those around us.  And not a hair on our heads will be so much as singed in the process!  

What passions do you burn with?  Do they consume you, using you up, leaving a pile of dead ashes?  Or do they fill you with the life of God, burning but no consumed, fueled by God's powerful love?  Lent is a great time to take a look at your life and your passions, see what gives light and life, and what merely consumes, and consider whether changes are in order.

"I invite you, therefore, ... to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word."  (BCP, p. 265)