A year ago we started our first end of school bonfire in the backyard firepit. This means burning all of those piles of paper. The time had come for year No. 2. We like to call it Family Home Evening with a twist: The lesson, activity and treat are all wrapped into one.
1. The Lesson: Discussions of what transpired during the year. Everyone talks about their highlights, lowlights and what they learned. It usually involves talking about crazy teachers, horrible homework, ridiculous tests, friends, and awesome events.
2. Activity: Wadding and throwing of paper accurately into the fire. (Super highly underrated activity btw)
3. Treat: Wadding and throwing of paper accurately into the fire!! : ) ....... Actually, the treat is S'mores at the end!
So, we gathered up all the years' schoolwork, sorted into 5 piles, one for each of us, found matches, lit the kindling and started wadding up every single paper into a ball and started throwing them into the fire. There are seriously hundreds of pages. One by one each is scanned, sometimes re-read and occasionally placed into an unexpected "save" pile. It usually takes a couple of hours. During the wadding and throwing we start reviewing the year.... we recount the highlights, re-tell the stories, hear new things that never made it to conversation until now....as if they just happened.
COMMERCIAL BREAK: Parents- you want to get your kids talking? Get a bonfire going where they can throw things into it and they will start talking about things you never would have heard otherwise......So fun!After we get enough coals going, we put in the tinfoil dinners while we keep going. I come across some little treasures in my pile of soon-to-be-burnt offerings. They are short stories that McKenna wrote in English. They are totally hilarious fairy tales full of cheesy romance with contrasting death and destruction sub-themes weaved in. I read these out loud to the rest of the family causing everyone to end up belly laughing. Those are keepers.....Then there are those precious gems I find......the little genius doodles that are drawn in the margins of Chemistry homework. Little sketches long forgotten.....almost burned to death....saved by virtue of a ceremonial ritual.
I pause and check the tinfoil dinners as we hear their juices crackling and hissing inside. They smell as good as if we were camping. I throw the first one on a doubled-up paper plate and burn my fingers trying to open up the two layers of foil. The steam pours out and the smell engulfs my nose....."Ahh! I hope the potatoes and carrots aren't crunchy" I say to myself. First bite of potato is perfect.....almost scalds.....Ok, enough of that.... you know what I am talking about. I get them all ready and we dine like kings....
.....the fire has died down while we have eaten so now needs to be stoked again..... soon a steady stream of paper wads all find their way into the fire....one by one.....the orange flames grow longer and brighter......the aura of heat returns....I back my camp chair back a foot.....finally, the piles of paper are gone....the conversation quiets.....S'mores are finally eaten and then an unplanned transition occurs.....we all slowly fix our gaze on the fire......eyes transfixed--what an easy place to get lost in....
Fire is so metaphorical. Most of the time the word conjures up feelings of panic and fear. We spend a lot of time preventing and putting out fires. For good reason......However, the world actually needs fire. It is a cyclical phenomenon that is important to Earth's environmental life cycle.
Fire burns down things so that new things can come up and grow.
I began connecting what we were doing with that life cycle idea--We were closing out a school year in order to prepare for a new one. We were purging.....ending things so new things could begin. It was a cool revelation of how the moment of throwing something tangible became a process of "tossing' other non-paper "wads" of other things in our lives into the "fire" of life. With each toss, something new was put in its place.... a new hope, a new horizon. New dirt to seed thoughts ideas and actions. New growth.......Our little experience became a spiritual experience. We found the Spirit in the fire.
Some things we found in our fire:
1. Fire can bring families together
2. Kids get it when you provide the right environment for learning
3. Ending things together on our own terms can feel incredibly satisfying
4. There is spirituality in fire
5. There is spiritual fire
6. Spiritual fire can cleanse
7. We need Spiritual fire to live our lives in meaningful ways.
8. There is a forever supply of new beginnings and growth from fire
There was another fire once.... long ago a man was asked to build a fire, and sacrifice something very dear to him in that fire:
"And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" ---Genesis 22:7Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't, but either way Isaac was going to be that offering put into that fire. God stayed Abraham's hand but he learned the greatest lesson that day because it was a mirror of what God would end up doing with His son Jesus Christ. Abraham received a taste of what it would feel like for God to witness the sacrifice of His Son. Abraham found a profound lesson in that particular fire....
The ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate fire, the ultimate hope and new horizon.
I wonder what we are going to find in next years fire.... ? What will you find in yours?
Isaac
spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I
am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is
the lamb for the burnt offering?" - See more at:
http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.fIRMgKq1.dpuf
Isaac
spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I
am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is
the lamb for the burnt offering?" - See more at:
http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.fIRMgKq1.dpuf
Isaac
spoke to Abraham his father and said, "My father!" And he said, "Here I
am, my son." And he said, "Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is
the lamb for the burnt offering?" - See more at:
http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Fire#sthash.fIRMgKq1.dpuf
