ALL FIRE

Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said, “Abba, as much as I am able, I practice a small rule, all the little fasts, some prayer and meditation, and remain quiet; as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean. What else should I do?”

Then the old man stood up and stretched out his hands towards heaven, and his fingers became like the torches of flame. And he said, “Why not become all fire?”

~ from the Desert Fathers and Mothers

Comment: This is a fairly well known story from the sayings of the desert abbas and ammas of Egypt in the third and fourth centuries. It brings to mind the seldom used word zeal. In sports we would refer to it as “going for it” or “leaving it all out there on the field or court” or playing with “reckless abandon.” It is the reason we have the suffix –ful in words like grateful, wonderful, and joyful. It is oxymoronic to speak of partial gratitude or sort of joyful. In scripture this story of becoming all fire for God, for life, calls to mind Jesus’ parable of the talents1 when a man goes on a journey and leaves three of his servants five, two, and one talent respectively. When he returns he discovers that while two have increased their gift, the last servant buried his one talent. It reminds me of Machado’s last line in his poem “The Wind, One Brilliant Day”: “What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?” Too often the human inclination is to piddle around until we are faced with our own mortality and then suddenly try to make up for lost time in what matters most.

In the spiritual life zeal does not translate into being obnoxiously religious or religiously obnoxious but rather to live wholeheartedly, to give oneself to that which is of the essence of full human living: humility, gratefulness, kindness, wonder, praise, compassion, generosity, friendship, integrity, justice, love. Why not go all in, bet it all, leave it all out there on the field called the gift of life and become all fire? After all, it’s all gift.

1 A talent was a monetary unit worth about 20 years of a laborers wages.