This year, my family installed a new wood stove to aid in heating our house. It's grand. Fantastic. Beautiful. Most importantly, it's VERY VERY VERY WARM!
Last night, I was sitting in front of said wood stove, enjoying the fire, and texting my friend. Turns out he was participating in a similarily warm and cozy activity, but with a rocking chair instead of the floor :P
It seemed rather... ironic doesn't feel right, but that's the closest I can come up with.. that we could be doing the same thing miles away from each other (he's in Alberta), but we're looking at the same thing, feeling the same heat, seeing the same colors, and so on and so forth.
Which got me thinking. I'm currently reading Les Miserables (by Victor Hugo), which is set during the years after the French revolution and tumultuous periods of government proceeding and succeeding it. In that book, there's a bit about a house some of the characters live in (Thernardiers), and how they are dirt poor, but because the room they rent has a fireplace, it goes for forty francs a year, even though it's dirt floors and broken walls. The emphasis is placed on the possession of fire.
Fire has, since the day it was discovered, represented many things to mankind. On the one hand, it is warmth, strength, family, love, safety, protection - but on the other, it is a destroyer, a danger, something to be feared. As my text to my friend said, "How it has built us up, then destroyed us.. how it allows us to live, and then kills us."
These, then, were the foremost of my fiery thoughts. However, as time and conversation progressed, and I again thought about how my friend and I were in the same position with huge distance between us, I thought about all the other people who have also, like me, sat and stared at a fire.
People like Queen Elizabeth. Robespierre. David Thompson. Caesar Augustus. William Shakespeare. Jesus Christ.
A hundred thousand faces from history flee through the mind in seconds. Also, the millions who forever shall remain nameless to us... the victims of the Irish potato famine. London's child workers. African families. Even the Okanagan's firestorm several years ago.
Millions of people, through thousands of years, all connected in a strangely tangled web of experience united by something common and familiar - flame. High and low, white and black, rich and poor, every single person on this earth knows fire and has experienced it in some way.
So as I was sitting there thinking about this, a new thought struck. What were they thinking about as they sat in the same place I am now?
I can't tell for sure, but I can certainly guess. Maybe David Thompson was thinking about home, his family, and getting back there safely as he shivered in the snow of the American North, inching closer to the flames to keep warm. Maybe Queen Elizabeth was staring at the fire, drinking a glass of wine and doing her best to weigh the options for dealing with her errant and troublesome cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots. The children of Africa gaze at the flames and wish they had something to cook upon them. Jesus peered at the crackling logs and prayed for the sacrifice he was called to give, and the race he was giving it for.
And I bet every one of those people thought about the past, present, and future as they sat. I think about whether my children will have gas or electric heating or something entirely new and yet uninvented when they're adults. I think about whether fire will ever be used to heat the home as time goes on. I think about whether they will think about their ancestors and all the struggles hundreds of generations have had to overcome to be at the place we are now.
And I think about my own ancestors. Whether they ever sat by the fire and thought about me, even though they didn't know my name, or who I would be, or what I would do. I wonder if they ever prayed for their children's children and future generations. I wonder what each generation sacrificed in turn, so the next would be happier and healthier; so their children would be able to live longer and better lives.
I am curious as to whether they would be happy with how I am living my life. If they were able to look at see how I am handling my own situation, how I treat people, how I steward the earth I live on. I wonder if they would ever see the things I get upset and complain about, and say, "Look, though - this is what I did for you. I sailed across the ocean so you would have opportunity. I built this house with my own hands so you would have somewhere to live. I killed a man so you could live freely."
This is what fire has inspired in me. This is what I've been thinking about. All of the people who have stared into flames before me, and all of those who will after I die. How much they've sacrificed, how far they came, so that I could have a better life.
I think I owe it to them to live my life as they did. To be thankful for what I have, and to always try to do better. To take opportunity, to educate myself, to change the world.
If they hadn't done it, there's no telling where we'd be today. If I, and others in this generation, don't take a stand, where will we be tomorrow? Only the fire will know.
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