Chapter 7 - Clarity
Note from the author: You may wonder why I skipped from Chapter 5 to Chapter 7, and there is an easy answer for that: Chapter 6 is not finished yet.
I think I gained an insight into myself tonight. There is a group of six saints from our church that meet on monday nights to sort out the ups and downs of life, love and faith. We have been meeting, some of us, for nearly three years. These people have become real stolid people in my life and the life of my budding little family here. Tonight we met for the first time since the summer, and were going through some faith updates, finding out where each of us is at with God. I was trying to figure out what to say.
You must know that I am not known as the most talkative guy. It’s not that I don’t like talking, or socializing, or even being the center of attention, on the other hand, I just like to wait to have something important to say before I say it. As we went around the circle sharing, there were some struggles, some high points, but mostly it came to the fact that almost all of us are tired. Our little mountain church is having a personality crisis right now. We don’t know who we are, exactly. We are sort of all standing around looking at each other, knowing something is missing, but none of us can quite put our fingers on it. When I got talking, I told them about the blank canvas. I told them about wanting to teach my son true things. I told them about my struggle to find meaningful things in the weekly service, and then I had this revelation: I still love God.
I know it is elementary. But this is a great thing to find out when you are trying to re-define your faith. As I talked about my desire and my longings, I felt the spirit of God stir somewhere deep inside. It stirred just enough to tighten my throat and dampen my eyes. Just enough to give me hope that somewhere there is a wee little fire burning, waiting for it’s chance to flare up again.
About two years ago, my wife Anie decided that she wanted a wood stove. We are not super rich, we are not rich at all, though we certainly feel blessed every day to have our cute little house, our two running VWs (nothing short of a miracle there) and our beautiful garage. I am particularly happy about the last one. When we bought the house, people would come to visit for the first time and invariably the guys would make a bee-line for the garage and say 'Nice shop!'. It is a nice shop.
I agreed to the wood stove, though I knew it would mean more wood chopping for me, and wood hauling, and fire starting. Well Anie saved and saved, and when our little band played gigs, she would squirrel away the money, and when the taxman blessed us with a return, she would add that to the sock under the mattress. By May she had saved enough for the stove, the pipe and part of the installation. Good work, babe.
Once the stove was installed, we waited for a nice cool day to fire up the stove and enjoy the fruits of her labour. If you have ever tried to start a fire in a wood stove, you know it’s harder than starting one outside. There is several things you need:
1. Good, dry paper. Too much ink and it won’t burn fast enough to get the fire going. It has to be dry and well crumpled so that the oxygen can get around it. If you roll it too tight it won’t light.
2. Kindling: This has to vary in size from toothpick size to wooden spoon size. The small stuff has to catch, burn hot enough for the medium stuff to catch, and then get really blazing hot so the actual logs catch.
3. Then you need good wood. Pine burns good, but fast. Larch does well, but so far my favourite is Fir. It is still a bit green when you put it in, but it burns hot and long, and will keep the house warm all night.
4. You also need to set all this stuff up just right, or you will use a whole box of matches and a whole lot of breath trying to get your fire going. Who knew that there was such a trick to lighting fires?
Once you get everying set up, you light the fire and watch the paper curl into multi-coloured flames, hoping the wood shavings will catch, nursing the lick of fire gently with soft breaths, praying it will come to life. When we first got the stove, it would take me two or three tries to get it right. Now it’s first time, almost every time.
Then, once you get it lit, you have to decide where to leave the damper so the wood doesn’t overburn, or fizzle out. It’s a real committment, this stove.
Tonight I discoverd that my little flame of faith was still smouldering. I was encouraged to know that if I lay the paper down right, and set the logs just right, that I can again begin to turn this ember into something more significant, more warming. I want to begin looking for opportunities to add some fodder to the fire, to turn my soul just right so God’s breath brightens the coals. I want to again feel like i’ll have some warmth to offer my friends and family, and most importantly my God. Whom i love.
I think I gained an insight into myself tonight. There is a group of six saints from our church that meet on monday nights to sort out the ups and downs of life, love and faith. We have been meeting, some of us, for nearly three years. These people have become real stolid people in my life and the life of my budding little family here. Tonight we met for the first time since the summer, and were going through some faith updates, finding out where each of us is at with God. I was trying to figure out what to say.
You must know that I am not known as the most talkative guy. It’s not that I don’t like talking, or socializing, or even being the center of attention, on the other hand, I just like to wait to have something important to say before I say it. As we went around the circle sharing, there were some struggles, some high points, but mostly it came to the fact that almost all of us are tired. Our little mountain church is having a personality crisis right now. We don’t know who we are, exactly. We are sort of all standing around looking at each other, knowing something is missing, but none of us can quite put our fingers on it. When I got talking, I told them about the blank canvas. I told them about wanting to teach my son true things. I told them about my struggle to find meaningful things in the weekly service, and then I had this revelation: I still love God.
I know it is elementary. But this is a great thing to find out when you are trying to re-define your faith. As I talked about my desire and my longings, I felt the spirit of God stir somewhere deep inside. It stirred just enough to tighten my throat and dampen my eyes. Just enough to give me hope that somewhere there is a wee little fire burning, waiting for it’s chance to flare up again.
About two years ago, my wife Anie decided that she wanted a wood stove. We are not super rich, we are not rich at all, though we certainly feel blessed every day to have our cute little house, our two running VWs (nothing short of a miracle there) and our beautiful garage. I am particularly happy about the last one. When we bought the house, people would come to visit for the first time and invariably the guys would make a bee-line for the garage and say 'Nice shop!'. It is a nice shop.
I agreed to the wood stove, though I knew it would mean more wood chopping for me, and wood hauling, and fire starting. Well Anie saved and saved, and when our little band played gigs, she would squirrel away the money, and when the taxman blessed us with a return, she would add that to the sock under the mattress. By May she had saved enough for the stove, the pipe and part of the installation. Good work, babe.
Once the stove was installed, we waited for a nice cool day to fire up the stove and enjoy the fruits of her labour. If you have ever tried to start a fire in a wood stove, you know it’s harder than starting one outside. There is several things you need:
1. Good, dry paper. Too much ink and it won’t burn fast enough to get the fire going. It has to be dry and well crumpled so that the oxygen can get around it. If you roll it too tight it won’t light.
2. Kindling: This has to vary in size from toothpick size to wooden spoon size. The small stuff has to catch, burn hot enough for the medium stuff to catch, and then get really blazing hot so the actual logs catch.
3. Then you need good wood. Pine burns good, but fast. Larch does well, but so far my favourite is Fir. It is still a bit green when you put it in, but it burns hot and long, and will keep the house warm all night.
4. You also need to set all this stuff up just right, or you will use a whole box of matches and a whole lot of breath trying to get your fire going. Who knew that there was such a trick to lighting fires?
Once you get everying set up, you light the fire and watch the paper curl into multi-coloured flames, hoping the wood shavings will catch, nursing the lick of fire gently with soft breaths, praying it will come to life. When we first got the stove, it would take me two or three tries to get it right. Now it’s first time, almost every time.
Then, once you get it lit, you have to decide where to leave the damper so the wood doesn’t overburn, or fizzle out. It’s a real committment, this stove.
Tonight I discoverd that my little flame of faith was still smouldering. I was encouraged to know that if I lay the paper down right, and set the logs just right, that I can again begin to turn this ember into something more significant, more warming. I want to begin looking for opportunities to add some fodder to the fire, to turn my soul just right so God’s breath brightens the coals. I want to again feel like i’ll have some warmth to offer my friends and family, and most importantly my God. Whom i love.
posted by creativisualist at 11:33 PM
7 Comments:
You know how great I am at starting up fires in your woodstove. I remember many a day when you'd come in and see me kneeling on the floor, talking to myself, 'come on, come oooon...*whoooooo' I'm glad there are still some smoulderings in your soul Mike. Sounds like a good title for a book. 'Smoulderings in the Soul'- a book about the Journey, by Michael Hepher. It could be a devotional instead if you wanted. Ha. You know what worshipy song this post reminded me of? I won't sing it - I shall spare us all...
"It only takes a spark, to get a fire going..."
hehe
yes exactly.
or, (sing with british accent) 'light the fiiah, in my souuul...'
p.s. and in all seriousness, i'm not trying to make light of what you're saying.
as Finn would say.."coooo"
with one finger up)
Be encouraged my little scooterboy, to stay steadfast in the path you've chosen. We all find ourselves at the point of confusion, apathy, loneliness, etc, at one time or another (some of us actually even live there). What keeps us together is not just the fire itself but also building of it.
that's deep, man. It's not that i'm not used to confusion or ambiguity, it's just that there's MORE of it than usual.
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