The Flame Sputters On

The following is from Paul J. Pastor’s beautiful book The Face of the Deep: Exploring the Mysterious Person of the Holy Spirit…

*     *     *

I walk to the woodshed in the January rain. My flashlight shows the stacked cords resting in even rows. I fill my tub, the last piece cast on top a hunk of knotty fir, all bumps and bends.

I carry the tub to the round block by the porch, fetch the maul, and split the logs one at a time. Good wood, seasoned a couple of years, they crack under the touch of iron. Soon there is only one log left, the malformed one, a challenge to even rest on the block. I do not expect it to split. But I am stubborn and bring the wedge down and down again.

Seven times I strike it, with only slivers shaved off from among the knots, until it’s hacked about, small enough to be pushed into the firebox. It goes back into the bin, then into the house, then into the stove.

For all its resisting, it burns hotter than all the others when I lay fire against it. It pops and mutters as the knots sizzle.

It lies there and burns like a little star, warming my hands. I think of how many people I have dismissed in my life, the many people I have walked past, snubbed, ignored, left unseen. If the Spirit speaks against worldly power, where has he spoken against me? In my search, unconscious though it may have been, for influence, for significance, for the ability to do what I wish, have I set myself up as a miniature Saul?

If I were given the opportunity, am I the kind of man who would build a kingdom for himself in the desert and veneer the murderous mess with God-talk?

I would like to think that I am the humble prophet.

But I wonder if I am the prideful, insecure king.

The flame sputters on.