Smoke & Shared Pain

a devotional for summer

Photo by Norman Meyer on Unsplash

the light is gold just after dawn,
a wrong, sunset color
and the birds sing
in confusion;

with burning eyes
we face the smoke
that traveled for miles
to be our censer, 

swinging under the rusting sun
to pull us back to prayer,

our homes the sanctuary;
spirit within
smoke without

all the windows tightly sealed.  

Annual visits from wildfire smoke have become a sorrowful tradition here in our region. I wrote last year about it (in this devotional and this essay), connecting the idea of this unnatural haze with navigating the often hazy days of our uncertain lives.

But this year, the smoke is putting me in mind of the way I handle the pain of others, distant strangers, when it is presented to me.

For us, the smoke is simply a new color of August, a slight coppery cast, the rust-red moon presiding over our evenings. It is a slight shortness of breath, an itching in the nose, a burning in the eyes. A reminder to stay indoors.

But the smoke came from an inferno, somewhere in the distance. A hell that I don’t have to fear, but that the smoke asks me to remember.

When I am told about a distant, massive tragedy—the fires in Hawai’i, for example—I am faced with two extremes: allow it to overwhelm me with grief and helplessness, or tune it out completely. That is the luxury that distance affords me. Grief with no purpose, or ignorance at no cost.

But wildfire smoke cannot be ignored, and would be foolish to grieve. It is with us, no matter how I feel about it.

Smoke, then, can become a pang of pain, a signal, a reminder. Like hunger during fasting, smoke can be a call to prayer.

That is the third and best option when distant tragedy makes itself known, I believe. When we feel that pain, that burn, it is a tactile reminder to pray. To pray for this world that God So Loves. To pray for the people on the doorstep of the tragedy. To pray for our own hearts to be softened, led, made even more compassionate and open to the Creator’s voice.

This coppery cast is the color of shared pain, true, but it is also the reminder to pray with every breath that healing may come swiftly, and with it—once again—a bluer sky.

Discussion Question:

What do you do when you are faced with distant tragedy? Do you find it easier to grieve, or to ignore? And what reminders draw you to prayer?

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