Fire-Forged

It’s amazing how perspective can shift in a week.

Just a few days ago, the hot news in the headlines was the defeat of a soccer powerhouse. The U.S. Women’s World Cup team – two-time defending champions! –  made their earliest ever departure from the tournament, knocked out by Sweden in a game that came down to a fraction of an inch. For a team that had never finished lower than third, this was a Moment, one that could not be looked away from.

I’d planned to write about that moment. And then came the unthinkable words.

“Maui’s on fire.”

By now, we’ve all seen the photos, read the headlines. Lahaina burned to the ground. At least 80 dead as I write this, surely more now. Stark scenes from a place of beauty, transformed into devastation.

In a weird way, the news was all too familiar. Every Coloradan knows much too much about wildfires and the destruction they can bring. With just a spark in the wrong place, the whole grim parade of events can start anew: evacuations, containment efforts, choking air, the memories of a lifetime reduced to ash.  

It’s lit the Mountain West over and over, seared itself into our brains and our reflexes. The smell of smoke, imprinted on a state’s DNA.

This summer, we’d actually allowed ourselves to breathe a bit. After all, this year we had rain. And rain. And rain again. High rivers and flooding produce their own dangers, of course (don’t we know THAT well?) but at least one old enemy could be kept at bay for a while.

So when those old painful images reappeared, this time in the heart of an island paradise, it seemed surreal. Even that word doesn’t go far enough, I know, for those who have ties to Hawaii … an out-of-place nightmare made far too real.

There’s a lot that’s still ahead. There always is. Disaster only seems to know two speeds: heartbreakingly fast when it’s in the moment and painstakingly slow in the days and weeks and months after, as people try to recover, rebuild and learn just what the heck happened.

But as Maui’s story continues, there’s one other shadow of the past that’s been revived. A welcome one.

In every disaster, we re-learn the meaning of the word “neighbor.” Not just the person whose property happens to bump against yours, but the person who needs help that you can give. Time and again, we rise up to help someone else rise.

Some have given money. Some have given sweat. People have reached out to schools, to families, to animal shelters. And in every act, large and small, we do more than rebuild an area. We rebuild ourselves as well – the idea that wherever we are, whoever we may be, we share a tie that makes us one.

We recognize a common pain. And in meeting it together, we make all of us stronger.

It’s a Moment. One worth more than any championship.

The cameras will eventually move on. That’s the nature of news and of human attention. But it’s not the end of the story. And it should never be the end of that spirit.

We’re a community. A family. A team.

And whatever lies ahead, we’ll pass through the fire together.   

Brought Fourth in Silence

I’ve never known a quieter Fourth.

No shells bursting in the sky. No firecrackers raising the hackles of our dog. Just a night where the occasional rattle and bang and boom was occasional indeed, brief ripples in a sea of silence.

And yet the stillness rang louder than any skyrocket.

It’s no surprise, of course. This is a summer where many people have seen enough fire in the sky already. With Colorado burning down day after day from wildfires, fireworks had become about as politically popular as renaming Mile High in honor of Al Davis. Maybe less so.

Shhh. This is a No Sparking zone.

Some disagreed, of course. Some always do. And I can understand. Fireworks have been an expected part of the day since John Adams. I have memories of watching the bursts from bat-inhabited golf courses, or tree-obstructed bedroom windows, or even from our own rooftop, the shingles made slippery by a protective hosing down against bottle rockets. (Mind that last step!)

So yeah, it’s a great part of the day.

But it’s only part of it.

Absurdly, my brain began to go back to Christmas, to a Grinch who decided stealing all the presents could steal the holiday with it. Anyone with young children in the house (or our Missy) can recite the results by heart:

 

He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!

Somehow or other, it came just the same!

 

It’s still true. Douse every sparkler, shush every “1812” cannon. The day is still there, the freedom still as real. The symbol isn’t the thing.

And the symbol this year may be more potent than anyone expected.

What’s the day about, really? Not beer and explosives, fun though the combination may be. It’s about a people taking charge of its own future, about men and women and communities doing what they must to secure the day, however little they might like it.

It’s about a general who constantly wanted to come to grips with the British – yet knew his country’s only chance was if he kept his army alive.

It’s about those who risked “our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor”in grasping at a dream where failure meant the noose.

It’s about those who could leave family and home, or hold it together while others left, deferring what they wanted in favor of what was needed.

The Fourth of July has never been for wimps. Living the legacy means making tough choices.

And when we make those choices together, for the protection of us all, that’s a brighter light than any skyrocket could create.

There’ll be a day when the fireworks return, a day when smoke and flame can be replaced by “Ooh” and “Aah.” Maybe it’ll be twice as good, with two years of Independence Day budgets saved up. Maybe it’ll be the same show as before, with this year’s spending donated to this year’s fires, a drop in the bucket but a welcome drop all the same.

Whatever comes, the Fourth will come with it. And someday it’ll come with all the bells and whistles and Roman candles anyone could want.

Until then, we wait. Not out of fear. But out of care, out of duty, out of watchfulness for our friends and neighbors.

And even on a silent night, those can be heard loud and clear.