Where there is smoke, there is a fire

Where there is smoke, there is a fire

With pungent spice burns the resinous heart wood of the Montezuma pine, "ocote" in Spanish,  drawing us round the Mayan altar.  We gather, Christians and those who profess no faith,  Tseltales, Tzotziles, Europeans, Mexicans, United Statesians, Canadians, Lebanese,  called by the smell, the smoke, the candles, the flowers into sacred space.  We pray for awakening to  peace in the midst of the political crisis and government sponsored violence, we pray for courage as the diversity of the environment disappears around us, we pray for justice in communities devastated by migration, alcoholism, drug trafficking.  We pray for the people of the United States to have the courage and perseverance, the wisdom and strength to stand in dignity, as the Mayan have stood again and again, over the centuries, bending under oppression, but not breaking, resilient and resistant.   With each prayer we turn, East, West, North, South.

I resist opening my heart in this liminal space, the doorway between heaven and earth, because of the smell.   Thousands of miles away, the pine plantations owned by powerful lumber companies  are burning like blue matchsticks covering Chile in a heavy gray blanket.  Homes, churches, native forests catch on fire.  A blaze near the Shalom Center threatens the 240 acres set apart by the Pentecostal Church of Chile and the national reserve I know so well, the Altos del Lircay.  As with  many of the other situations mentioned in the prayers, there is so little I can do.  Finally, when we turn to the south, I give in: I feel the tremble of the hummingbirds, the lizards, the condors, the foxes, the ancient trees.  It is the fear of fire and the ravages of humanity.  Thousands of miles away, in the highlands of Chiapas, surrounded by people in a place where "mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed" (Psalm 85: 10) I fight off insidious despair and breath deep, filling my lungs with the smell of commitment, imagination, and joy which abounds in the struggle for Shalom.   "For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and self-control."  2 Tim. 1:7

Elena Huegel

Feb. 28, 2017