In the last week over 11,000 flashes of lightning have ignited over 500 fires in California. On Tuesday night this week, a fire started burning a dozen miles north of the hermitage; it's now a couple of miles from the hermitage.
This particular fire is now 10% contained. Federal and state firefighters are hard at work at the hermitage, bulldozing and clearing brush, creating fire breaks.
A couple of days ago some monks and I were evacuated to our other monastery south in San Luis Obispo. That same day, some of our other monks went to our other monastery north in Berkeley. Earlier in the week, some of our monks had already come down to the monastery in San Luis Obispo.
Into my head about this fire, and all of these fires burning right now, comes the same question that has been coming into my head about the coronavirus. What is God calling to us in the midst of these challenges?
Certainly let's pray for these fires to be extinguished quickly with little loss of life and property. Yet if that's all we request of God, how much better off will we be?
How is God calling us to pray, to learn and to grow as a result of these fires, the coronavirus and all of our tribulations we endure? Let's take these trials, and all that afflicts us, as opportunities for more closely attuning to what God is saying to us.
Fire is greatly stoked through the dead wood that has been lying piled up on the forest floor. All that doesn't feed us, that we don't clear away, is fuel for what seeks to consume us.
If we remove from ourselves what should die, then we can progress toward God. As the impediments to our growth are extricated from us, we make the room in ourselves for our souls to breathe, to excise obstacles to doing God's will.
If we are willing, God can use what seems like tragedy to transform us. Let us embrace our current circumstances to become who God made us to be. Amen.
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