Bill is a fire-builder – all kinds of fires. He loves to build bonfires out of doors. We have a fire pit at our home down by the creek, one at his Grandpa Grover’s farm place (Grover’s Corner) and one at our cabin in the woods. He also builds fires in our kitchen fireplace which he keeps going all through the night from the first chill of October to the thaw of April.
There is nothing like a fire to draw people in and make them feel at home. Fires call up memories of all the warm times of one’s life.
Our fireplace is often the gathering place for great conversations, lingering meals, and children drying out from an afternoon in the snow.
We have three places in our house for cozy fires: our family room, our kitchen, and our bedroom. Fire is an important ingredient in the activities of all these places. Our bedroom – our special place – is made instantly inviting after a busy, stressful day by the cracking of a fire. I often turn on the fireplace log in the morning to make it more enticing for Bill to crawl out to face the day.
Our family room is where the grand kids play and where suppers of soup and grilled cheese sandwiches are eaten by the fire, or where we gather around the piano to sing – by the fire.
But our favorite fireplace is in the kitchen. This is the great heart of our home, and the fire is a living presence that calls us to be “present.”
I believe it is our calling as Jesus people to build fires wherever we go that draw people in, provide warmth and welcome, and dispel the chill of our broken world.
One could do worse than spend a life building fires!
