YOPJ - Let's fire up the world

I was standing at our window. Alone. Outside however, a fire was lit. Beyond the garden boxes in our fire pit. It's a flat little bit of yard that holds the boxes and just a bit of extra room for the round, grey cinderblock fireplace built ever so perfectly. The rest of the yard slopes away to the fence.

Around the fireplace my husband was standing with our two little men, sitting on a picnic bench a couple feet away from him. They love this little shared ritual. It was half a circle they made, if even that.

When we normally burn for fun we create a full, circular crowd, one that shifts this way and that to avoid the ever changing direction of smoke. Smoke follows beauty, so when surrounded with my kids it can never pick a direction. Too many cuties!

But this was just a plain old fire. The simple purpose; to eliminate garbage while rain vainly threatened to join the party. A sign of life. It was humble and quick, but meaningful. A sign that though we grow cold, we can still spark flames.

As we did for each other later. Words were like sparks flying from our mouths. Sparks which found the dry tinder of our lonely cravings for fellowship. Resentment is hard to hold onto this way. As flames erupted, they licked our wounds in healing light.

We are not all better. Far from it. But we keep falling into this inferno of passion that is lit by simple, healing words. So this ice melts and I want to light up the world with its tender hope.