"Your fire is dim"

H,

Prayer is our connection to everything else. There is nothing bigger than it in terms of connecting or re-connecting to God. It has taken this bad color in our recent religion; an outward flourish instead of any inner sense of being and living. It has become like any other chant to any unknown god.

Yet the abuse of something does not negate its ultimate truth.

Of course the last thing you want to do when your fire is dim is show it to God. We all have the fallen virus in our bones and blood. When He (the generic “he”, of course) comes calling, we run and we hide. On one level it is the dumbest thing to do. It is like having a fire about to go out in winter and running away when you see a flame coming toward you to replenish your smouldering wick. It is also the most sensible thing to do. A fire coming towards you is still a fire coming towards you. Fear and dread my still be the most logical response to the fiery presence of the living God.

Especially if He is unknown.

We are Christians because we believe that He can be known. We relate to the idea of God with us in every sense. We know the fire is one of heart. We know that when it consumes it revives, when it hurts it heals and when it kills, it resurrects. We bear the “slings and arrows of fate” because we believe that we are bearing witness to the greatest truth of all: eternity is what matters and time on earth only matters in relation to eternity.

Our fire is dim but our head is unbowed. We are of non-bowing ilk.

We do not bow to sin or wrongdoing, of others and from ourselves, not to transient power and lucid madmen on plastic thrones, not to failure or the failure that is seeming success at too high a price of self-worth and real self, not to trances, false visions, ideas, falsehoods, false gods and tin displays of worthless power.

We bow to only one being in the Universe. Not because He is spectral and we cannot reach Him. But because He is closer than close and He does not speak in words. He speaks in love. And we got His great letter. It was imprinted on a cross, it filled up an empty tomb and showed up as fire on the heads of our brothers and sisters from two thousand years ago.

Our fire may go dim but in Him, it cannot die.