Touch the Fire

I've been thinking a lot lately about finding your way when you feel lost. About getting your bearings when you feel disoriented. About finding your mojo when life has sucked you dry. All these things are painful in themselves and we often struggle in isolation to understand our lives. But we don't have to be alone!

So often though it is our own hardness that creates and then perpetuates the isolation. We put up strong defenses in the form of emotional and mental barriers against others, even those we are closest to. I think we do it to protect the spark of the soul, to preserve that one final reservoir of vitality from being snuffed out in a cold and dark world.

And we suffer because we can't really connect with those around us. Well, we connect but its rarely at that deep center that we are trying to preserve. Because real connection with real people is risky. They may quench the fire! No. No. Or they may stoke the fire. Gasp. Gasp. And either way that is the end of us, or so we think. "Oh that is just way too dangerous," we think to ourselves! Not consciously but at the deepest core of our being which we aren't even aware of for the most part.

However, it occurred to me that the fire at the center of our lives is in reality a divine fire. That fire can't be blown out or even stoked by another human being (although there are other fires in us that can be!). It's just a small spark of that divine fire that penetrates the coldness of an infinite universe and draws out the dormant life that is there.

And there are special moments when that divine spark in one soul touches the divine spark in another. It can happen between friends, and spouses, and even maybe somebody we've just met. And it is truly magical and beautiful but hard oh so hard to manage. It seems to me that such experiences remind us that life is a gift and grace is alive!