Friday, August 13, 2021
Impossible Dream
Mary Watts
Connected in Christ. Every day those words show up in our inbox with some wonderful example for our real life, our real world. In a time, in a still-raging global pandemic, in a world turned angry and sometimes seemingly hopeless, we are given this gift, over and over, shown how others are quietly reaching out their hands to us, asking us to be connected with them in the lessons of Christ.
Have you paid attention to the news of the forest fires burning in California? Have you seen the images of blazing infernos, towering spires of flame roiling unchecked across thousands of acres? Have you really, consciously looked at the pictures of piles of ash which were once a building, a home, a barn filled with livestock? Have you considered all the creatures of the forest who are hourly running in front of the fire line, their instinct for survival urging them away from the horror which is consuming their habitat? Have you seen the highways filled with people evacuating, leaving the devastation behind them? With every ounce of our rational being, we tremble in fear at experiencing such a very real hell on earth in our own lives. Alas, it is in California. It is far away. We pray for them all, the people who are there, and then we change the channel and watch something else on television.
I recently heard a beautifully sung rendition of the song, “The Impossible Dream” from the musical Man of La Mancha. In that song are the words “to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.” I was blown backwards at hearing those words, not for the first time but for a renewed reminder that we must, so very in deed, be willing to march into hell sometimes if we are really connected in Christ. He did that, you know. He marched into hell for a heavenly cause: our salvation. There are others. Right now, as you read these words, there are men and women wearing yellow shirts, Calfire Fire Fighters, who are hourly and daily marching headlong into hell, not running away from it, and it can surely be for no reason short of heavenly. They are not paid vast sums of money. They are not recognized as famous. It is hot, dry, miserable, dirty, smoky, back breaking dangerous work. And yet these people seem to understand their heavenly cause and they take it up, like a personal cross, and leave us dumbfounded, thankful beyond words to describe, and so very humbled for their sacrifice, their personal contribution to the phrase “connected in Christ.”
My brother was a forest ranger and often a fire fighter in New Mexico and Arizona. He told stories of the fires, especially the Native American fire fighters and Hotshots who, with uncensored courage, literally jumped into hell to save lives and property, even to save wildlife. Many of them gave their own lives, too many. Today, August 7th, my niece, his niece, has been allowed back into their home in Grass Valley, near the town of Colfax, part of the land being consumed by the River Fire, as it is known. She called. We sat and cried together as she walked the land and described what she was seeing. Houses across the road were totally lost, beautiful homes completely gone. Her Farm House, as they call it, was still standing, but the adjacent barn and well house were both nothing but piles of ash with twisted metal roofing material on top. There were bits and pieces of metal sticking up at odd angles, remnants of the springs of a rattan furniture set that had belonged to our grandmother, but miraculously, unbelievably, the house was still standing. As she and her husband had driven back down their street they had expected the worst. This was an impossible dream. How had the fire stopped only feet away, been turned back? How could this be? Answer: The house was surrounded by a wide, hand dug trench and just “over yonder” were the Calfire men packing up their gear, getting ready to move to the next place. They had, with conviction and purpose charged into hell to save the home of someone they didn’t know, might never see. She went to them at their trucks, tearfully thanked them, but it was so little. They drove away, the individual connection broken, but for my niece the faces of those men will forever linger in her mind’s eye, her memory, as connected to saving her home, a salvation of sorts, one person to another, freely given, no strings attached, a price paid without expectation of return. How could anything be more of a connection in Christ than that?