Last night I chatted outside late into the night, until the embers died. This is not a unique experience, as whenever conversation and fire are involved I will generally chat until the fire dies. One experience in particular stands out. I was camping with some friends in California, and the evening fire had a metal rim outside to limit the spread of the fire in the normally dry countryside. I put my shoe on the metal ring and by the end of the night it had nearly cut my tennis shoes in half because the ring was hot and I could not feel the danger of it until it was nearly too late. Sometimes even someone as cautious as myself can get a little too close to the fire, I suppose.

Some years ago, the band Nickel Creek released an album “Why Must The Fire Die?” in which they used a fairly familiar but touching connection between a fire (or its embers) and love. “Why must the fire die? My mom and dad kept theirs alive” forms part of the chorus, an optimistic view of the fact that enmity and coolness are not inevitable in a relationship. The fire does not have to die as long as both parties are willing to do the work to stoke the fire and keep a friendship or some other type of relationship alive. Not that this always happens, for one reason or another, but it is a possibility so long as the interest is there.

Not all embers dying are bad things, though. Sometimes the embers of hostility should be allowed to die rather than being stoked into raging hostility. As a child I grew up in the countryside of West Central Florida, and even as a young person the embers of the Civil War were still alive in the mindset of my neighbors. One would think that almost 150 years would be enough for the hostility to die down, but that has not been the case. Perhaps the constant feeling of cultural disrespect from other parts of the country is enough to keep alive that sort of hostility for those who identify with the South. I would not understand that all too well (I tend to resent being considered a Southerner), since I am a child of the Piedmont of Appalachia and the Border North (being a Western Pennsylvanian). The winners of a war seldom have fires to keep alive, as victory often carries its own rewards.

Whether the fires of our lives are the warm glow of loving and friendly relationships or the fires of anger and resentment, we have to decide whether we are going to keep them alive or let them die. Life is too short to be ruined by hostility and anger, and too long to spend it without putting forth honest and decent efforts to behave friendly with people who are decent and friendly themselves. As long as the embers remain glowing, they can be banked into a warm fire to keep us warm in the cool of a darkening evening. Whether the work of keeping the fire alive is worthwhile to us or not is something we have to decide for ourselves.