Sacred Fires

Dear Friends, Guests, and Members,

Our local world is once again on fire. The Sandy, Foothill, Burro, Santa Rosa Island, Bain and River Fires are contributing to the destruction of tens of thousands of acres. This land includes habitat for plants and animals, insects, and myriad other forms of life now consumed by fire. Soils will be vulnerable to washout with big rains. The life under the soil and in the air will be limited as the char heals and seeds spring to new life. It’s the new normal.

The world is also ablaze with xenophobia, homophobia, racism, conflict and the wanton greed that enriches a few while starving masses of people. The world is ablaze with false narratives, propaganda, unfathomable disparities between people(s) and war. It’s ablaze with loneliness and alienation. It’s ablaze with ecological ruin.

While settling into discouragement can be easy, and not finding comfort in the concept of fire as cleansing, there is yet hope. Fire symbolizes passion, enlivenment, refinement through experience and trial, the presence and work of the Holy Spirit, and the Presence of God in Glory. Jesus brings the fire in ways that we can count on for change that is personal, societal, and global. Fire is evocative, warming, consuming.

Join us on this journey as connect the ecological well-being of our planet to our obligations as humans to all our many environments: the natural world, the developed world, and and the relational world. We are all connected to our world and each other.

So loving one another and caring for creation: these are the surest signs that we are with God, and of God—branches grafted into the vine.

Blessings!

Pr Greg