Faith And Collective Trauma 15

What is fire? Is it energy, and purely a material property of a material universe? Is there a spiritual property? I have an idea. Fire and electricity and other forms of energy somehow straddle the seen and the unseen. Energy is spirit made materially manifest? I don't know. I haven't given a lot of study to this matter and on these pages I can only offer ideas and suggestions. We still have to do the work of research, reading, study and learning. But fire is fascinating. The Zoroastrians revere fire as sacred, and it has throughout the world religions and spiritual practices a kind of sacred status. In Christian churches, notably Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox, fire is used in all the masses, eucharists and divine liturgies, in the form of lit candles, as a visible reminder of the presence of the Holy Spirit and the light of Christ. During the Easter Vigil service each year the sacred fire is rekindled and blest, and becomes the source of the sanctuary light that is always burning above the altar. When we were given the gift of fire we were granted something huge, something potentially lethal, helpful, comfortable, healing, and inspiring. Fire also cleanses: for example the annual bush and forest fires, human causes and climate change notwithstanding, are essential for keeping ecosystems healthy and flourishing. Fire purges, in the smelting of precious and other metals it burns away the dross till only the pure gold and silver remain shining in the basin. Fire is also a deadly force, a lethal weapon. It has been used from time immemorial as a weapon of war, from the burning of thatch huts and wigwams to the fire bombing of Dresden to the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the church perverted the doctrine of Christ in the Middle Ages and became a political and military instrument for the conquest, control and extermination or forced conversion of unbelievers, fire became employed as that most pernicious and deadly instrument of torture and execution that found its apogee during the Spanish Inquisition and beyond, leaving thousands, perhaps even millions of innocents falsely accused of witchcraft and heresy reduced to ash, following the most horrendous and excruciatingly painful prolonged death that could be imagined. The excuse of the church was that fire was an instrument of purging and cleansing for those heretic and pagan souls, possibly saving them from a worse destiny in the fires of hell. The Upanishads call love a fire that burns forever. I mentioned yesterday that astrologically-speaking, water and fire are my dominant elements. I sometimes see myself as a river of fire, or water on fire flowing and overspilling the banks and setting ablaze forests, towns and cities. Fire is a sacred element and we are always in the midst of a sacred dance with fire. It is deadly, comforting, enlightening, inspiring, healing and cleansing. We can never quiet control fire, we can only live in it and try to avoid its worst devastation while taking advantage of its many benefits. "in the vault of the heavens, in the cradle of the earth; at the moment of death, in the agony of birth. Sages of old have sought to know the worth of the Sacred Fire, the Luminescent Flame, whose tongues have embroidered and licked the Mystic Name that is born in the pupil of the shining eye of God, having burnished the places where the saints have trod; it pours down holy mountains and immolates the land, till rocks and stones split open and crumble into sand, making desert wastes into regions bright and grand...Fire of destruction, from eternity you roar, fire of creation, our spiritual core, fire of destruction, from eternity you roar, fire of creation, our spiritual core...…In your all-exposing light we are naked and alarmed, we draw nearer to your flame for our bodies to be warmed, as you burn within our hearts to reveal your dwelling place, the Theophany's new home where he measures out the grace that will recreate for each of us a face as we sing in the silence to the mystery of your name, that melts our bones like wax as we plunge into your flame, our beginning and our end forever and the same....Fire of destruction from eternity you roar; fire of creation, our spiritual core. Fire of destruction from eternity you roar; fire of creation, our spiritual core...our spiritual core, our universal core....our spiritual core.