Fire On The Earth

Written from the road:
It’s Monday morning. We’re heading north. Destination: Big Sandy Lake, for a day with our eldest. There’ll be talk, and a speedboat ride. Lunch. And then homeward bound.
 
Grown kids make it possible. Oldest daughter at the wheel. I ride the back seat. Watching Minnesota fields and forests pass us by. And towns - ones we haven’t seen for years.
 
The highways are wide open. The big traffic is coming south, heading home. We head toward our “last rose of summer.” The sun shines pale through high haze, from the fires of the West. It’s all the talk on the radio: Washington, Oregon, California, all – on fire. People’s homes, their history, their papers and possessions, gone. In a blaze of fire.
 
What lies ahead, but to rebuild. To remember. To begin life again! My soul can hardly hold that. As an old man, I cling to what I have. My precious wife. Our children. And theirs. My 40 years of sermons – even now being scanned. For whom: for Posterity? Maybe. For the unknown future.
 
I write - about life. About what it means to have lived, to have done, what I could. Not really what I should. Not the father I wanted to be. Or my children wanted me to be.
 
My Cheyenne River Indian friends gave me a name. Translated it is: “He is away. He will return soon.” Going and coming. Trying to be a minister. Trying to bear a message to the world. Of life. Of hope. Of following a Lord. THE Lord. Living for others. Caring for people. Changing the world.
 
Maybe. I pray so. Soon I will know what it all really means, “Following Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.”
 
So many turns in the trail. So many decisions. Such high adventure. With Molly. Following Jesus.
 
And the earth turns. And the fields are golden, ready for harvest. And the pale sun says, “There is fire on the earth.” There is destruction and loss. But, there is life, too. Children grow older. So do we. And we learn. And understand. All so mysterious.
 
The fire that comes, that changes the world, is the fire in the soul. The Light that overcomes the darkness, that gives hope, that helps us keep going, is the light within our hearts – God’s gift to each of us. In these times. And all times. Oh yay!
 
Love to you.
Arthur