Lost in Faith

As I watched Roy on stage Sunday morning, an interesting thought occurred to me.
“My God, this is how I’m going to die.”
Roy stood there—bathed in a red glow that reminded me of the depictions of Hell I had seen from old Looney Tunes shorts—and I would have sworn that he had a maniacal glimmer in his eye.
“This is how I’m going to die—that madman up there is going to burn the whole church down and I’m going to die in this building—having never seen the Pacific Ocean, still a virgin, and having left a load of wet jeans in the washing machine.”
I suppose you could say that I had shot off a few flares of my own at that moment. I sat there, listening to the slow-burning ambient noise of the flare. To me, the sound of long, drawn-out “sssssshhhhhhh” of the flare was kind of hypnotizing. It was interesting to listen and to look at this small, rather simple object, probably no bigger than a rolled up newspaper—and to wonder about how much damage that simple, little object could cause if it were mishandled or misplaced.
I had trouble taking my eyes off of it. So I sat there as Roy kept speaking and I just stared at this simple little thing sitting in a metal tub on top of a table on top of a stage.
Now anybody that knows me, might correctly be under the assumption that I bottle things up. I like to take the more frustrating aspects of life and sweep them under a little rug inside my head. I store them there until they either eat a bigger hole into the floor or they coming bursting out of the sides of the rug.
But to my credit, sometimes, things are just hard to talk about. Not necessarily because you don’t think people will care (I am lucky enough to have friends that do). Not because you don’t think people will understand (I am lucky enough to have friends that often will). Not even because you don’t want to talk about things (I usually feel the greatest pain when I refuse to release a secret or a hurt that is desperately trying to claw it’s way out).
No, sometimes, things are hard to talk about just because—well—the words are hard to find.
I feel like a maniac a lot of times because I simply can’t find the right words to express what’s going on inside of me. Maybe it feels like I can’t think of the right time to say something or maybe the time is right, but my tongue feels like it’s been inflated like a balloon and I stutter and stammer over my words. Sometimes I’ll release a flood of words that in my head sounded like a confession or an apology or a plea, but actually came out sounding like I had caught my tongue in a hand mixer.
And that’s why I do exactly what Roy did—I take that feeling or thought and (just like a flare) I turn it upside down and stick it in the ground. I figure that if I can’t see fire and I can’t see smoke, then it’s dealt with. No worries.
And that probably works most of the time. Turn it over and jam it into the ground once and all the smoke and all the fire just disappears. But there’s still fuel there. There are still bits of leftover kindling just waiting for the next flame to come give it a kiss.

Now at about the same time every year, I see stories all over the news about how California’s being ravaged with wildfires. And unless it’s arson, it’s pretty much for the same reason every time.
The ground was too dry. Leaves, dried twigs, and dead grass made perfect kindling. Oh, and people built too close to the trees, so guess what? Those homes are in danger of getting roasted like Lincoln Logs in an Easy-Bake Oven.
It never fails. You leave that much flammable stuff just lying around and eventually, it can come back to get you.
Granted, nobody’s going to rake the entire Pacific Northwest.
Nobody’s going to go through California with a hose and water the grass.
Just like nobody’s going to pick up your dead flares for you. Nobody notices a flare on the side of the road if it’s not blaring red. Nobody remembers a used flare. A cold flare just doesn’t seem dangerous.
But there’s still fuel. There’s still something to burn. So the next time a burning flare get jammed into the ground—but doesn’t quite go out—it could start a forest fire. And anybody’s who’s built their home to close to your forest might get burned.

I wonder…
…What if I had a set of special glasses? Glasses that allowed me to see the flares people carried. Imagine I could only see the flares when I wore these glasses.
In a single day, how many people would I see, at a standstill, arms raised up high, burning a flare for all to see?
In a single day, how many people would I see, sitting alone on the ground, holding a flare behind their back and pretending it isn’t really there?
And in a single day, how many people would I see standing in their own personal fields, miles and miles of spent flares planted upside down into the ground, on their knees begging for no more?
Take the glasses off, and it probably all looks like business as usual.

If I’m ever driving at night, I rarely ever see road flares. But if I do, it’s probably because something very bad has happened. Usually it’s a car wreck where somebody has gotten badly hurt or worse. It just seems like common sense on the highway not to use a flare if you are low on gas or if you are lost or if you just can’t stand the idiot you’re driving with. We only use them when it’s life or death.
But you can’t do that in your heart and your mind. Because even though you don’t lie out your flares for all the passerby’s to see and you don’t signal for help that often, you still light them. It’s as involuntary as your heartbeat. You get hurt. You light a flare. You get ignored. You light a flare. You get upset. Light a flare. Lighting a flare is an involuntary action.
The voluntary action—the part where you get to participate—is in deciding what to do with that flare.