The Fire Within

The Human Fire 3.6 - January 12, 2025

The difference between containment and sustenance.

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Los Angeles burns. Sides debate. Families weep. I mourn with those I know who have lost childhood homes and decades of memories. Tables that families and friends shared meals and stories over the holidays, now ash.

I write this as I sit by the carefully-controlled gas fireplace in my house, keeping the bitter January cold at bay. It's not lost on me that a subtle change in circumstance could render this fire destructive, rather than life-sustaining. It's properly contained for now. But absent those constraints?

The careful balance of oxygen, fuel, and heat can mean the difference between an out-of-control inferno and a civilizing, useful heat source.

Later this week I'm going on retreat to consider my own purpose and passions. As I prepare for that, I'm thinking about the spaces in my own life where that balance has been off or tilted, where there's been an overabundance or scarcity of fuel that's caused internal or external damage. What I want most is to use my own fire to sustain myself and others.

Oxygen

Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: “Father, to the limit of my ability, I keep my little rule, my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and to the limit of my ability, I work to cleanse my heart of thoughts; what more should I do?” The elder rose up in reply, and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: “Why not be utterly changed into fire?”

~ Sayings of the Desert Fathers

At its essence, fire is a transformative process. From Prometheus stealing it from the gods, to the phoenix being reborn from its ashes, our deepest human memories of fire show us how elements brought together become something else. If I, then, can bring certain elements of my heart's fire together, can't I become someone else, someone more myself?

Fuel

In my former life as a pastor, there were some "big events" that demanded a response. The September 11th terrorist attacks, the Sandy Hook massacre, the Boston Marathon bombing. You'll notice those were all human-centered tragedies, resulting from the actions of particular persons aimed at others.

I never spoke directly to victims of environmental disasters, those things the insurance companies strangely call "acts of God." I've been through tornadoes, hurricanes, and nor'easters, but nothing like we saw recently with Hurricane Helene where entire sections of the map just seem to vanish in hours.

A memory surfaced this week from a high school English class, describing the three typical conflicts you find in literature: human vs human; human vs self; human vs Nature. Of course back then it was "man vs." But something always struck me about how nature was capitalized, as an entity or force with personality. Almost a substitute or equal with God, if God were a force that made us suffer.

When Nature engulfs us, through flame, through flood, through fury, how should we respond? How do we contain such events, both in their external effects, and in what they do to our spirits?

When Nature is the "victor" of the "man vs" - and it almost always is - then the conflicts we need to address the most are those between and within us. And once we do, we might realize that none of these conflicts are zero-sum, despite how we present them to ourselves.

Heat

Philosopher Andrew Taggart sees the "life design" practices of folks like Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter founder - one of what he calls Silicon Valley "secular monks" - as fundamentally about containing fear and desire so as not to become enslaved to others. Do you have practices you use that you say are about one thing, but really about something else? In other words, where in your life are you trying to control circumstances and contain your fears, instead of opening yourself to a deeper experience of reality?

Until next week, I'll see you down the path.

Chad

HumanWealth Partners

P.O. Box 1486, Newburyport MA 01950
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