A congregant of a small town church, who previously had been attending services regularly, stopped going. After a few weeks, a friend of his, who was also a member of the church, decided to visit him.
It was a chilly evening. The friend found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.
Guessing the reason for his friend’s visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a big companion chair near the fireplace. He motioned for his visitor to sit and waited quietly until he did before sitting himself.
The friend made himself comfortable but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the play of the flames around the burning logs.
After some minutes, the visitor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still completely silent.
The host watched all this in quiet fascination. As the one lone ember’s flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it lay cold and dead.
Not a word had been spoken since they sat. Both remained silent. The only sound was the crackling of the flaming hearth.
Just before the friend was ready to leave, he picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
As he reached for the door to leave, his host spoke the first words of the night. He said: “My dear friend, thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery reminder of the importance of being part of something bigger than myself.”
In the craziness of this world, we’re desperately looking for something bigger than us, yet we’re always trying to make things smaller than us. And so maybe ‘us’ is the real problem. ― Craig D Lounsbrough
Have an AWE-full Weekend!
William “Bill” Bacque