The Fire Within Part 6

July 12, 2026

The Fire Within Part 6

As a child, I was fascinated when my father lit a fire in the barbecue pit in our backyard. My parents used it for cooking out and for burning unwanted boxes, leaves, and rubbish. When my dad burned things, I would sit in amazement watching cardboard boxes and other unwanted materials collapse into ashes within minutes.

One day as a youngster, I gathered discarded boxes and built my first fire. I stacked the boxes into imaginary skyscrapers and grand hotels. The small compartments inside the boxes became rooms. When I lit the match, I watched my miniature city become a towering inferno. Ants and insects scrambled to escape the flames, and in my childish imagination, they were people fleeing the burning buildings. There was something powerful about fire—something mysterious and almost otherworldly.

Perhaps my father inspired that fascination. He loved burning things—leaves, brush piles, fallen limbs, old boxes. If it could be safely burned, he was happy to light a match. But as I grew older, I noticed something else. Whenever something significant happened, he built a fire.

I never asked him why. In fact, I doubt he consciously knew that when a life-changing event occurred or when something important happened, he built a raging fire. Yet looking back, I now know in my heart that it was a kind of ritual woven into his soul.

When he and my mother disagreed, he built a fire. When relatives left after a visit, he built a fire. When something troubled him deeply, he built a fire. The night our beloved dog, Sparkle, died, he built a fire. When he was wrestling with a major decision—or had finally made one—he built a fire.

Over time, I came to associate fire not simply with combustion, but with change. Fire marked endings and beginnings. It accompanied grief, uncertainty, transition, and renewal.

Later, I noticed that storytellers understood this symbolism too. In films, a fireplace often glows behind people who are falling in love, wrestling with difficult decisions, sharing painful truths, or confronting one another in anger. Fire becomes a silent witness to transformation. It symbolizes passion, purification, destruction, and rebirth all at once.

Perhaps that is why spiritual traditions so often speak of the "fire" of God's love. Love is not merely a pleasant feeling. It is a force. It warms us, illumines us, comforts us, and sometimes burns away what no longer serves us. Love changes us.

Many years ago, at a gathering of Jungian therapists, I was speaking with analyst Barry Williams about his son Rafael, who had been born with significant disabilities. Rafael was only a year old, but I have never forgotten what Barry said about his experience…

"Like any parents, we grieved when Raf was born with these challenges. But our dreams and our lives had been preparing us for this, even though we didn't know it at the time. We believe this experience is going to allow us to know the power of love in a way we never could have otherwise." Then he repeated these words again, the power of love.

His words stunned me: “The power of love.”

Most of us think of love as comfort. Barry understood love as a form of transformation. Sometimes the greatest fires in our lives are not the ones we choose. Yet if we allow them, they can burn away fear, self-pity, and resistance, and reveal a depth of love and healing we never knew existed.

That is the paradox of the sacred fire. What appears to consume us may actually be illuminating us. What seems to be lost may become the doorway to a greater capacity to love.

Spiritual Practice

Reflect on the great fires of your life—the losses, challenges, transitions, and unexpected turns. How have they expanded your capacity to love?

Inquiry

In what ways have you experienced love as a transforming power—a true superpower?

Prayer

Dear God,

I am humbled by the conversation with Barry so many years ago. Through his honesty, courage, and wisdom, you gave me a glimpse of the transforming power of love. Prepare my heart to receive that love more fully and help me trust the fires that shape me into who You are calling me to become.

Amen