Warming your Insides

Thursday night. Zac’s cooking night. Shed night. Space to be creative night, (not because other nights are not creative but just in case we are so swept up in the mundane for the rest of the week that we have at least one night set aside to explore possibilities).

This night, it is just Ben and I, (don’t worry we have the baby monitor on). The fire is all black and grey and red and orange, glowing, warm in the way that only a fire is warm, soaking into you, warming your insides and I am happy just sitting here in front of it.

How quietly blissful it is to do nothing more and how rare an occurrence in modern life.

This saddens me but it only seems that it is in these precious moments when I am still that the need and longing for many more of them can be heard.

I used to be so good at it. But then I didn’t really have a life. And now the pendulum has swung to the more normal extreme – at least in our culture.

And this brings me to one of the few attractions of TV for me. It allows me to allow myself to sit still. As much as I rail against it I actually love sitting down to any old thing (almost) and switching off. I see why it is addictive because when it is not on, which is most of the time, I and we are always doing something. My brain and my body just can’t sit still. I’ll just do this and then I‘ll just do this and then I’ll sit still. TV gives me an excuse.

But a fire is a so much better one.

As with TV, with a fire there is no need to do anything else. And as my body is warmed it relaxes and as my mind is freed, it does too. Free to wander, docile and aimless. Free to ponder and explore.

A theory: God gave us fire as a substitute for the sun in winter.
Just as we need the sun for life and spirit, so the fire does the same in a more unassuming, intimate way in winter. And perhaps it is not such a good thing that we are replacing it with machine regulated temperatures for it is about so much more than the temperature.