Fire Tending

I had never owned a woodstove before this year. But this winter – and this early spring - I find myself tending a fire regularly. We do not heat our home exclusively with wood, but most nights I build a fire in the box. I do it to save money on our propane bill and simply for the joy of it.

We have one of those woodstoves with a glass front through which you can view the fire burning. So we have the ambience of a fireplace while heating the house more efficiently than with an open fire.

I find it difficult to take my eyes off the fire. When I am reading or watching television, I find my eyes drawn irresistibly to the stove – to see if it needs more wood or just to watch the movement of the flames. It is so much more interesting then the flickering images on TV.

There is something mesmerizing about fire … and something very spiritual. Fire is a universal symbol for the divine. In the Hebrew Scriptures, sacrifices were offered through fire. In the Vedas, fire was the primary focus of Hindu worship.

The Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in tongues of fire at Pentecost. God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. There is something about fire that connects us to the spiritual realm.

Tending a fire feels like a spiritual practice. It is like tending to the spiritual life. A fire needs watching; so does the soul. Without attention, the flames die down and quickly go out. So does the fire of the soul.

There is nothing so dead as a cold woodstove. There is nothing colder than a dead soul. On the other hand there is nothing that warms the heart more than a blazing fire on a cold night.

I will leave it to the reader’s imagination to explore the details of this symbolism. How does one tend the fire of the soul? What is the fuel? What is the flame? Who is the one who tends the fire?

An ordinary wood fire easily becomes a complex allegory in the mind of a preacher sitting by his woodstove on a cold night. Undoubtedly my imagination is going too far. But how can I not speculate? The fire inspires.

Thaw of the Soul

It is March and the intermittent thaws send water flowing in the streets. Melting snow finds its path across roads, making its way into the lakes.

As I drive down Squam Lake Road, the water seems impatient with the customary routes of creeks and brooks. Water dashes in wide swaths across the road, seeking its rest in the mountain lake.

The sight stirs my soul. My inner being feels this way about God. My soul races toward God. I could not stop it any more than I could stop water from flowing downhill.

My soul seeks its home in God. My soul came from God and will return to God. In the meantime I sojourn here.

The soul is God’s. It is deeper and stronger than my mortal personality. It hungers for God. It flows from God. It empties into God.

I could not stop its flow if I wanted. But I do not want to stop it. Indeed, I wish to follow it to its Source. I ride the current of my soul like a twig carried by a river.

Revelation says there is a river that flows from the throne of God and flows through the streets of the New Jerusalem. I know what path it takes. It flows through my soul.

Fifty Thousand Thoughts

I was watching a new episode of the television show “House” recently and saw a segment called “House Call.” It is a fifteen second spot that presents interesting medical facts. This one was entitled “Thoughts.” (You can watch it here.) It stated that humans have about 50,000 thoughts a day. That is 2083 thoughts per hour or one thought every 1.2 seconds. That is almost as many junk emails as I get!

I have been thinking about those thoughts. It seems like an awful lot of thoughts. It does not leave much time for other things. But I know that it is true. My mind is a never-ending thought-producing machine.

Many of my thoughts are repetitive cycles of thoughts. I continuously rehearse the past or speculate about the future. Too many of the thoughts are negative. I read Norman Vincent Peale’s “The Power of Positive Thinking” years ago. It didn’t help. The more I try not to think negative thoughts, the more they appear.

It is like someone saying, “Don’t think of pink elephants.” Well, of course pink elephants pop into your mind. Then I start thinking of whether they are African or Asian elephants, and how a pink elephant could be born of a regular elephant, and where that recessive gene could have come from, and so on.

After thinking so many worthless thoughts, I have decided that thinking does not get me anywhere.  Even when I think godly thoughts, they don’t seem to bring me closer to God. Thinking thoughts about God keeps me bound to my restless mind instead of enjoying rest in the Spirit. Thinking about God becomes a substitute for experiencing God.

Thinking seems to erect a barrier to God. That is a rather disturbing thought for a pastor. I have been trained as a theologian. My job is to think about God and communicate those thoughts to my congregation in thoughtful sermons. It’s what I do; I’m a preacher.

But this preacher is thinking that thinking is an inadequate approach to God. It is all right as far as it goes; it just doesn’t go far enough. At some point in your thinking you come to the limit of thought. Then all you can do is point beyond thoughts in the direction of God.

You often have to use words to point, but they are words that point to the Reality beyond thoughts. They are triggers of faith. Faith is not believing thoughts for which there is insufficient evidence. Faith is stepping beyond thoughts into the realm of Spirit.

Faith is resting in the Ground beneath thoughts. It is living in the space between thoughts. If we have 50,000 different thoughts a day, then there are also 50,000 spaces between the thoughts, however brief they may be. That is where we meet God - fifty thousand times a day. What a glorious thought! Our minds are filled with God. We just have to know where to look!

The Unused Door

I recently bought a house with a front door that is not used. I am not the only one with such a door. It is quite common in this area to have unused front doors. People use their side doors, back doors and porch doors instead. There is an unspoken rule that front door entry is inappropriate.

I visited some friends’ home a few days ago, and they have a table barricading the front door to make sure no one will mistake it for a usable door. My front door has insulation stapled between the inner and outer doors to make sure that everyone (including the new owner) gets the point.

I think the door may also be nailed shut; I will find out in the spring when I can access the door from the outside. The snow bank that buttresses the front steps makes it impossible for anyone to approach that door now. At least I think there are front steps. I don’t really know. They were snowbound when we arrived in January, and I have never actually seen them.

The outside of our front door is unpainted as if to announce to the world that it is not to be used. It is neglected-looking gray wood, in contrast to the fresh paint that coats the rest of the house. It is a color code that shouts to UPS and FedEx drivers: “Use some other door!”

I am not sure why front doors are unused. Often the used door is harder to access than the front door. When we moved into our house in January, it would have been easier to carry our furniture through the unused front door. It is bigger and opens directly into a large room. In contrast, our side door opens into a narrow hallway with an immediate tight turn that makes it difficult to maneuver larger pieces of furniture.

Having a spiritual bent, I have been pondering the spiritual significance (if any) of unused front doors. For example, does God’s home have an unused front door? If Jerusalem is God’s hometown and the temple is “the house of God,” perhaps it does!

Jerusalem’s front door – the Golden Gate that faces east and was the main entrance to the Temple Mount in Jesus’ day – stands unused. It has been blocked for nearly five centuries. If you want to enter Jerusalem, you have to go in one of the side doors.

According to Jewish tradition, the Shekhinah (Divine Presence) used to appear through this front gate. Tradition says that this is the gate through which the Messiah will enter Jerusalem. For that reason the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Great sealed the Golden Gate in 1541 to prevent the Messiah's entry. Muslims built a cemetery in front of the gate to emphasize the point.

It makes me wonder if there is a spiritual significance to unused front doors. Is it symbolic? Is it psychological? Does it represent the door of our souls? Jesus’ words suddenly have greater significance.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” If you hear knocking at your unused front door, now you know what to do.

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The Divinity of Space

I am sitting in my study looking out at the sun shining on the snow. It is a February thaw, and I can see the water dripping steadily from the eaves. Out by our shed, I can see the picket fence that separates our property from our neighbors. The sun shines through the wooden slats, casting dark shadows on the bright snow. Beyond the fence are second-growth trees stretching up a slight knoll.

I am suddenly aware of the spaces between everything. The spaces between the dripping water drops, the spaces between the pickets, the spaces between the shadows, and the spaces between the trees. I am even aware of the open space of the glass door that allows me to view the space beyond.

The spaces are what create the objects. There are no drops of water without space between them, no pickets without the spaces between them, no shadows without the contrast with the light.

Then I am aware of the space between my thoughts. The spaces distinguish thought from thought. I hear some music drifting in from the living room where my wife is babysitting our grandson. The spaces between the notes create the music. The spaces in the paintings on my wall produce beauty. Thespacesbetweentheletterscreatethewords.

Because the spaces are so important, I decide to dwell in the spaces for a while – the spaces between sounds, the spaces between thoughts, the spaces between emotions, the spaces between breaths, the spaces between heartbeats.

In the Old Testament it is said that God dwelled in the space between the wings of cherubim on the ark of the covenant. There was nothing there to identify the presence of God. No image like other religions had. No symbol. No writing. Just empty space.

Yet in the emptiness is God. No physical, verbal or mental image can communicate God. No doctrine captures God; God dwells in the space between ideas. Even today the Jews do not speak the Biblical name of God. They know that no name is adequate.

The same is true of prayer. I pray with words, but God dwells between the words. God lives in the silence between my sentences and thoughts. So I spend most of my prayer time in the empty space where God dwells. In that space is peace. In that space is truth. In that space is God.

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Photo is “After the Snow” by Solo

My Day in Court

A few days before we moved from Pennsylvania I went to court. It was nothing serious. When we had our auto accident in December, the police officer gave me a traffic citation. The charge was “driving at a safe speed for the road conditions.” He meant “unsafe speed” but I took the words written on the ticket literally. I thought I was driving at a safe speed!

It was the day after a snowstorm and the road was all snow and ice. I was driving slowly down a country road when my tire caught the berm. The car began to skid and sheared off a utility pole, deploying our airbags and totaling our car. Thankfully we were unhurt.

The officer apologized for giving me a ticket, saying he “had to do it.” Being the ornery guy I am, I “had to” challenge it. I figured it was not my driving, but the unsafe road condition that was to blame.

So I had my day in District Court. The police officer didn’t show up. The judge said that since there wasn’t any evidence against me, he declared me “Not Guilty” and dismissed the $100 fine. Vindicated!

I knew I was not guilty. At least I think I was. To tell the truth I was not sure how fast I was going, even though I know I was traveling under the speed limit. Perhaps it was a little too fast for the road conditions … But I shouldn’t have been issued a ticket. My conscience is clear…. I think. In any case the judge has spoken, and that settles it.

One thing I didn’t tell you is that I have a friend who is a judge. Not the judge of my case; my judge friend is a friend of this judge. When I explained my situation to my friend, he shared his expertise. He did not “fix it.” I would not have asked him to do that, but it doesn’t hurt to have a judge on your side.

“Our Daily Bread” recently printed a story about Ffyona Campbell, who was famous as the first woman to walk around the world. But the truth was she cheated. She had broken the guidelines of the Guinness Book of World Records by riding in a truck a short distance during the trip. To clear her conscience, she confessed her deception and forfeited the right to be listed in the record book.

The apostle Paul says that all people have “the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, their thoughts sometimes accusing or else excusing them.” Whether or not people believe in God or a divine moral code, each person has an inner moral compass that tells them right from wrong.

All of us are accused by our conscience sometimes for doing wrong. That is judgment.The Christian gospel provides a way to clear our conscience and have us declared “not guilty.” That is the power of the gospel. It is the power of inner peace that comes from a clear record.

Only one man in history has ever claimed to have the authority to judge the world and also the ability to free the guilty. Jesus said that he came to save the world and was returning one day to judge the world.

Either he was mistaken, or the early church got it wrong when they quoted him, or it is true. Personally I believe him. In any case, it is always good to have the judge as a friend. What a friend we have in Jesus!

Cold Weather Spirituality

It is cold up here in the mountains! On Sunday afternoon we arrived at our new home in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and were welcomed by an overnight low of about 18 degrees below zero. Some reports put it at 24 below; others said it was only 14 below. I don’t know exactly how cold it was, but it was cold enough.

We opened the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink and kept the water dripping on all the faucets just to make sure that the pipes didn’t freeze. The last time we lived here, we practiced this ritual in the parsonage whenever the mercury dipped below zero. If we didn’t, we would be waterless in the morning. The joys of country living!

Cold does something to me emotionally. It makes me cautious. I am more careful about where and how I drive, just in case I get stranded in the cold. I am careful how long I stay outside, how far I walk, and what I wear. I have been on the phone with the propane company making sure that I have enough propane in the tank. It is not the type of weather to run out of heating fuel. I have some wood for the woodstove, just in case.

The cold makes me very aware of my vulnerability and mortality. It makes me more prayerful. I prayed while driving here from Pennsylvania as the auto thermometer read below zero for hour after hour. I prayed for others on the road. When we arrived in New Hampshire, I prayed a prayer of thanks. When I woke up the next morning and found my pipes intact and the furnace running, I prayed another prayer of gratitude.

The cold makes me feel my dependence on God. I realize that if I lived here a couple of hundred years ago – back when my church here was founded – then the cold could have killed me. So could a myriad of diseases that are treatable now. When transportation was horse and wagon and not heated automobile, one risked one’s life to travel.

You could say that the cold is good for my soul. It makes me very thankful to God. It makes me grateful for what I have. It makes me more appreciative of friends. The cold fosters community. People here find occasions to get together for meals and fellowship.  Cabin fever is a real malady up here. The cure is fellowship.

The cold also encourages fellowship with God. Not for everyone of course. It keeps many away from church rather than bringing them out. Many Yankees just hunker down at home and tough out the winter months. But the cold has the opposite effect on me. It melts my heart and softens my soul. It strengthens my spiritual bond with God and others.

Don’t get me wrong! I will be glad to see the spring come! I will be thanking God for the muddy roads. (Look for a blog on “mud season spirituality!”) But in the meantime I will practice the spiritual discipline of cold weather spirituality. They are predicting a low of 16 below zero this Sunday. Perfect worship weather!

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Photo by Betsey L. Josselyn