🔥 What do you see in the fire?
Wednesday, December 23, 2020
On bonfires and desires. Issue #2 // Winter 2020
Welcome to the third day of winter, and the second quarterly issue of This Mortal Portal.
As you read this, Jupiter and Saturn are closer than they've been in 800 years. Christmas and 2021 are around the corner.
Jump right in with me, will you?
Oh, and the title of my micro-essay (or mosaic of fragments) is also the refrain of a new song by the Avett Brothers. "The Fire" is a plainspoken ballad that runs just over six minutes, which is about how long it'll take you to read this email. So feel free to light it up on Youtube or Spotify while you read. Or go give it a focused listen.
What Do You See In The Fire?
On bonfires and desires
Man is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward.
-Job
"There's something primal about watching a fire," my friend Andy says as we sit in my backyard. Before us, sparks spiral up from the logs in the firepit. Behind us, his daughter and mine are chasing the dog who's chasing the chickens. The wind shifts, and with it, the smoke. Gagging and teary-eyed, we rotate around the fire in a shuffling sort of dance. The smoke follows us.
The Hebrew word hevel has been commonly translated vanity or meaningless in modern English translations of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. But its more literal meaning is vapor, breath, or smoke. And it's a near-perfect metaphor for life under the sun: enchanting, fleeting, and resists your attempts to control it.
Also it can make your clothes stink the next morning.
Late on a Tuesday night in September, I'm roasting marshmallows over a bonfire at Camp Wabanna. About 15 men sit around on logs, dragging on Newports and teaching each other how to make s'mores. "This is the first bonfire I think I've ever been at without being drunk," a grizzled old country boy says to no one in particular, perhaps to the fire.
A young Black man from east Baltimore, barely twenty, pipes up: "This is the first bonfire I've ever been to, period." Heads nod, faces glow around the circle. "Vic, you sure we gotta go back to the city tomorrow? Maybe we could just move in here; make it a mini-HUM."
The Mirror of Erised was a magical mirror in the Harry Potter stories, which, according to Dumbledore, shows the "deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts." The name "Erised" is "desire" spelled backwards, as if reflected in a mirror.
When Harry discovers it, he sees his late parents. But when he brings his friend Ron (hoping to show him his parents), Ron instead sees himself hoisting the Quidditch Cup. Ron, it turns out, has always felt overshadowed, and wants nothing more than to be in the center of the action.
Who needs the Mirror of Erised when you have a good wood fire going?
The penultimate verse of "The Fire:"
Someone I care for, she sits by my side
I can feel the past and the future collide
She leans in and whispers, “Don't think, just decide"
What do you see in the fire?
"I see the faces of my victims whose hearts I once broke
Calm and alive in the curling smoke
All I can do is sit here and hope
They may find a way to forgive me"
Here at the end of 2020, staring into the fire, I'm feeling the past and the future collide.
This year has reminded me who 'my people' are - the people to whom I belong. We're bound by love, and sometimes by vows of one kind or another. Some promises are spoken and formal, like my nuptial and baptismal and ministerial vows. Others go unspoken, but are no less understood. The promise that, whatever may come, as long as I'm drawing breath, I'll be there, with you and for you.
That's what I see in the fire.
There's something unspoken there in your eyes
A pain or a love I don't recognize
I better ask you now before it dies
What do you see in the fire?
Autumn 2020 in a GIF
Vic’s Picks
Here’s a cross-section of what I’ve been digging this fall:
Music
Spotify tells me that my 3 most-listened-to artists of 2020 were:
The Avett Brothers (esp. The Third Gleam)
Salt Of The Sound (esp. Meditations)
Book
The Tech-Wise Family by Andy Crouch. The subtitle is "Everyday Steps for Putting Technology in Its Proper Place," but he goes beyond screen time dos and don'ts to deeper questions of character formation. How do we become - and raise - people of wisdom and courage in our screen-saturated, easy-everywhere age? Also available as a free email series, heheh.
Video
Inside a California state prison, three civilian men enter into an intensive group-therapy session with incarcerated men. Over four days, the men tear down their defenses, laying their pasts bare in emotional and sometimes physical ways. It's raw, beautiful, powerful.
Podcasts
Unbelievable and Intelligence Squared. These two podcasts invite people of wildly differing convictions to sit down at the same table for honest discussions about weighty and complex political and theological matters. Unbelievable's Justin Brierley and IQ2's John Donvan are fantastic moderators.
Food
Krispy Kreme "Original Filled" Doughnuts
Their iconic glazed yeast doughnut ring, stuffed with crème filling and decorated with an icing squiggle.
Place
Weverton Cliffs
This spot is a regular stop on the Appalachian Trail hike I lead with HUM guys. This March, as the pandemic was disrupting everything and my brain was on the fritz, I hiked to the Cliffs and spent the day up there getting perspective. Then last month, we took our girls on a hike to the top. So many memories piled up in one place.
From Calvin & Hobbes, by the theological comedian Bill Watterson
For The Record
What I made or helped make this fall
Video: The Great Tree of Grindon
This fall, the oldest, most majestic tree on our block was cut down. It has always reminded our girls of the gigantic camphor tree in Studio Ghibli's Totoro. We're already missing it terribly. Before it was felled, I made a 2-minute aerial video for us to remember it by.
Website: Bark Social
In my not-so-spare time, I design websites. Bark Social is the first 'dog bar' in the Mid-Atlantic. They're opening next year, they've got big goals, and I'm helping them get there.
I'm booking web design projects for 2021, and I'm already booked up through March or so. If you or someone you know has need of my skillz, let me know.
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought of Issue #2.
Sic semper draconis,
Vic