The Not So Perfect Day

The fires have taken a toll that will be difficult to calculate. Hundreds of thousands displaced, living in fear. Almost two thousand homes already gone. Countless memories released into smoke, surrendered to the flames, resting in the ashes.

My sister's family hopes to return to their home today. It seems the fire has passed them by leaving only disruption of lives, turmoil and expenses that will never be recouped. Their story is but one in hundreds of thousands... they're among those blessed to have a home to return to. Talking with her about what she took as they were hurried out of their neighborhood, she said: "Looking around at all our stuff, I kind of had an ah-ha moment... realizing that all we owned was not what was important to me. We put the kids in the car and left." I imagine her experience was lived out a thousand times over as people were forced to evaluate their priorities.

I imagine there's a little liberty in that... but what do I know, I wasn't chased out of my home by fire.

We grew up with our mom's story of watching their childhood home burn down. Mom and her older brother Doyle were climbing in a eucalyptus tree in their front yard when they saw smoke coming from the roof. By the time they got down the back of the house was engulfed... she said the house was gone before anyone could come to fight the fire... it was the depression and everything they had was lost. Somehow, the family put things back together... even still, my grandfather was dead, a young man, within the decade. Doyle, her tree climbing brother, was killed in WWII. The house they built on the burned out pad is the place of my memories with granny, she's been gone since '72. That house was eventually torn down to extend the runway at Sky Harbor, the airport in Phoenix, Arizona.

The people who tore it down didn't know a thing about mom and Doyle, climbing a tree out front, only to watch their house catch fire... to lose everything. When I watch TV and see newspeople walk across scorched pads where a home once stood, where so many memories were made, where the walls were once filled with laughter and tears... I remember mom's story and my heart hurts just a little more for the loss.

You know the saying: "Just another perfect day in paradise." We take pride in those days here in Southern California... we haven't had one this week... far from it... it's not even been close to a perfect day. Pray for the people losing everything, those who's lives have been dangerously disrupted, those who are fighting to save it all... pray for us in sunny southern California. We're living for the return of our perfect days.

Song of The Day... in the sidebar... are just words of comfort, from a friend
Click to hear music file

Life is Fast

Debi and I were driving back to Riverside after vistiing my sister in the hospital in Laguna- she'd been flown home from Africa after coming down sick while working in Rwanda, we're thankful she's on the mend, then stopping to hang out with my mom and dad, when we came across this fire next to the toll road. Since we received less then two inches of rain in Southern California last year, everything's dry and just waiting for any reason to go up in smoke. The fire was ripping up the side of a hill where water dropping helicopters, fire trucks and lines of workers were just getting the battle started. Later in the evening I saw on the news that they'd put the fire down in no time and planned to spend the night making sure no embers spread the danger.

We saw the fire for maybe one minute: I took out my cell phone and snapped this shot. Acres of the local ecosystem were changed forever and firefighters spent frightening hours in the heat of sunset in the battle, then a long night on the hillside, in pitch black, working to make sure the community was safe. Long after we were asleep, they were still working. Firefighting: it's just one part of the puzzle that enables us to survive in the desert.

Life is fast. We drove by the fire at seventy miles an hour, while clicking a picture, then went on our way- next -without giving the blaze much thought. We didn't even consider stopping to help- they'd have sent us off in a minute, we knew things were in good hands and that if it got bad enough that they needed us... all of Orange County was in serious trouble! Somewhere, not far from the fire, a starlet was in rehab, a franchise baskeball player was considering his financial future, my mom and dad prepared for dinner in a downstairs room in my brother's home... my sister tried to accept that she was back in the states and sick, her children still in Africa... while a fire ripped up a hill side... the same way fire has burned since before there were fire fighters... life is fast.

Here in Southern California we have a fire "season" the way other regions anticipate weather patterns. We've grown fond of a sunset through the smoke... it's so beautiful... and such a part of who we are. I almost suggested to Debi that we wait out the fire, sunset was just an hour away and with the ocean and Catalina Island visible in the background it would have been glorious... but it just didn't seem right while others were fighting to put the blaze down and so we drove on.

Life is filled with fires, some burn unchecked, through our hearts, habits, spirits... others are brought under control- we hope before anyone spots the smoke -most call for loving support to help us put them down, no matter how hard we fight. People drive by... some take the time to stare... many don't even notice we're burning inside. Life is filled with fire, we burn with the seasons.

Life is fast, regardless the season we're in. Today's firestorms quickly become tomorrows charred memory and next season a new area for fertile growth and fresh beginnings following the storm. Whatever season we find ourself in today, we don't have to burn alone, we don't have to battle through a season of charred suffering without support and there are those ready to come along side us as new blades break through the surface to push aside old embers with the fragile beginnings of hope. Life is fast, let's share every season, even if it moves as quickly as a hillside brushfire on a summer afternoon in Southern California. Why go through it alone? Life is fast.