My father woke me just past midnight, making a sign that I should not wake the others. He handed me my shoes. The fire burned low and cast a flickering light on the sleeping faces of my family and friends.
Away we walked, my father and I, until we were climbing through the pines. Now we could look back on the soft glow of a hundred campfires. He was taking me up to the ridge. He had seen me talking with my friends the day before, pointing toward this hill and dreaming of unknown adventures in unfamiliar places.
Now, ascending toward the top, my father spoke.
“You are drawn to the places where there are no campfires. Some will try to hinder you because there are plenty of needs close to home. They have forgotten how our own fires got started. But here we are, at the crest.”
He had seen me … pointing toward this hill and dreaming of unknown adventures in unfamiliar places.
At this, he sat down and motioned for me to do the same. We could see from here down the opposite side of the ridge—which is to say we could see nothing. I waited for my eyes to adjust, but the darkness seemed to be a thing alive, a pot of paint, an ocean of ink. How long we looked, I do not know.
“Don’t be fooled; there are people there,” my father said.
Somewhere below, I could hear a sound that I cannot describe. If the sorrow of the lost could be heard from a long way off, this is what it would sound like. I felt a grief inside too deep for words.
“As they are,” said my father, “we once were. Fire starters now forgotten came to where we wandered in darkness. Someday it will be the same for these.”
“Can they come to us and join our warmth and light?” I asked.
“They are welcome to, of course,” he replied. “But that is not the way it happens. Others must bring it to them. There must be a sending out, a laying on of hands, a going forth, a great commission, a leaving of all that is familiar. The fire starters must lay down their lives, as Christ.”
He paused, then spoke words that stirred new hope into my soul. “You go back and wake your friends. You are fire starters. God will go with you.”
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