March 2009

Over at the Alban Institute website, Howard E. Friend, Jr has an article titled “Tending the Embers” that had a lot to say to me. It begins as follows:

Some years ago, our family built a home heated by a wood-burning stove. Each night I’d load the stove, carefully set the damper, and hope the fire would last until dawn. Each morning I’d clank open the door, hoping glowing coals awaited. When the bed was glowing brightly, I’d simply drop in some sticks of kindling, add a log or two, and head off for the day. When the hearth was gray and cold, I’d have to start from scratch. But most mornings what appeared at first glance gray and cold, revealed at closer look an ember or two still pulsing with life, however tentative and fragile. Breathing new life into the hearth became just that—breathing. Ever so gently at first: too briskly would blow the embers apart, and too cautiously let them cool and die. Mindful breathing just might coax a sparse scattering of coals into a first tiny and tentative flame, ready for deftly placed kindling, and only then a log or two.

Some churches have become a cold, gray hearth, with nary a sign of life. Others have stoked and tend a full and robust fire. But in between, I am convinced, there are some congregations, maybe more than we’d guess, awaiting a discerning eye to bend close enough to see the glow of scattered embers, breathe gently to invite those coals to burn a touch brighter, patiently await a first leap of new flame, and only then blow with vigor to fan the spreading fire. “Blow on the sparks, even if the hearth looks dead.”

You can read the whole thing at http://www.alban.org/conversation.aspx?id=7516.

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