Roasting S'mores over Holy Fire
Fall has finally arrived here in Texas—at least for this week—and the most exciting part of this for me is not the sweaters and the pumpkin patches and the football games. You can keep all that. I put up with 100 degrees for three months so I could at long last go hiking and camping and…sit around a bonfire.
Bonfires never disappoint me.
In high school, all of our friends would drive 30 minutes out to Brendan’s house in the woods, build a huge fire, throw aerosol cans in, and run for cover as they exploded. Please, please do not ever do this.
Seeing as I’m still here to tell about it, though, not all my experiences involving fire are so reckless. I remember sitting around one with 15 or so friends in high school and on a whim suggesting we share something we loved about each and every person. I was half kidding and all the teenage dudes rolled their eyes, but everyone humored me and two hours later there wasn’t a dry eye left.
In grad school, Bren and I would go camping often with friends, and while I loved hiking along the Blue Ridge, the best memories were made once we had gotten back to the site, eaten dinner, and settled into our chairs around the bonfire. Away from cell service and exegesis papers and Hebrew flash cards, there was something about the fire that made our conversation more honest, more direct, as if the flame burned away the pretenses you hold with even the closest of friends.
When I was in youth ministry, nothing made me feel more like their church momma than preparing the graham crackers and chocolate as students roasted their marshmallows. One by one, they would come and place their marshmallows on the graham cracker in my hands, pull the stick out, and take the s’more to devour. There was a sort of rhythm in it, a liturgy of sorts, as if they were coming forward to receive bread and wine. Looking back, I know now what I couldn’t name then—that we were indeed participating in a divine grace.
Now as a parent, I get to make new bonfire memories with the same guy who I used to throw aerosol cans in the fire with at 16. Last weekend when the temperature finally dropped, we made use of our fire pit for the first time. The girls roasted stale marshmallows (which were still good once hot!), while Brendan and I tried to enjoy our wine while also keeping a 3 and 5 year old from falling in.
We all stared into the flames and told stories, and then Amelia began wondering aloud why the flames and smoke rise toward the sky. I hadn’t planned for it, but it became a simple yet beautiful conversation about the symbolism of fire in our faith. We talked about how fire both warms and purifies us, about how the candles in church represent the light of Christ and the flame of the Holy Spirit, and how the smoke rises up to heaven just as our prayers and praises rise up to God.
I watched the girls tilt their heads upward tracing the smoke until it vanished among the stars, knowing I had just witnessed their understanding of God widen even as it deepened. It seemed like the only thing left to do in that moment was say our bedtime prayers right there around the warmth of the fire. We closed with the Lord’s Prayer as we always do just as the last flames began to flicker out.
Bonfires never disappoint me.
Maybe next time we will tell them about how God met Moses in a bonfire, and how the very ground he stood on became holy in its blaze (Exo. 3:2-4). We'll tell them how God led his people out of slavery and through the desert with a pillar of fire by night (Exo. 13:21). We’ll explain how God was with Israel in the fire of their sacrifices (Lev 6:12-13), and with the church in tongues of flames at Pentecost (Acts 2:3), and how God is with us even now roasting s’mores in our backyard.
I know it seems simple, but might I recommend praying around a bonfire this fall? With your family after dinner, or with your youth group on a retreat, or with friends and a drink in hand.
Pray compline, or bedtime prayers, or good ol’ fashioned popcorn prayer, and see how your experience of God deepen even as it widens.