Once a month St. Andrews holds an alternative meditative service for people living in the area. The focus for April was Fire. In between Taize chants we read and responded to images of fire. A number of Ecumenical Accompaniers commented on witnessing or attending to Palestinians who had been shot.
Fire Readings
Some say the world
will end in fire. Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with
those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of
hate to say that
for destruction is
also great and would suffice.
Robert Frost
Moses was keeping
the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock
beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked and the
bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I must turn aside
to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses! And he said, “Here I
am.” Then he said, “Come no closer!
Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place you are standing is holy
ground.” Exodus 3:1-5
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| bombs in Gaza |
Now there was a
great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in
pieces before, the Lord, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the
earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire, a
sound of silence.
I Kings 19: 11b-12
Earth is crammed
with heaven
And every bush
aflame with God
But only those who
see take off their shoes.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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| Holy Fire |
Self Portrait
It doesn’t
interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if
you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know
despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are
prepared to live in the world
with its harsh
need
to change you. If
you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is
where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into
that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your
longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by
day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion
of your sure defeat.
I have been told,
in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of
God.
David Whyte
Someday, after
mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God
the energies of love, and then, for a second time in history of the world, man
will have discovered fire.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The Truth stands
before me.
On my left is a
blazing fire, and
on my right, a
cool flowing stream.
One group of people
walk toward the fire, into the fire,
and the other
towards the cool flowing waters.
No one knows which
is blessed and which is not.
But just as
someone enters the fire,
the head bobs up
from the water.
And just as a head
sinks into the water,
that face appears
in the fire.
Those who love the
sweet water of pleasure
and make it their
devotion are cheated by this reversal,
the deception goes
further---
The voice of the
fire says:
“I am not fire, I
am fountainhead,
come into me and
don’t mind the sparks.”
Rumi
When the day of
Pentecost had come,
They were all
together in one place.
And suddenly from
heaven there came a sound
Like the rush of a
violent wind, and it filled the entire house
Where they were
sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire,
Appeared before
them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
Acts 2: 1-4
