Faith Like Fireweed
Why "faith like fireweed"?
I moved to Alaska in early September of 2017. While I've lived a lot of places in my lifetime, I had never experienced the way Alaskans are in tune with the land, the waters, the plants and the animals. As a new Alaskan, one of the first things I learned was that when the final bloom on the fireweed blossoms, it's only six weeks until the first snowfall. Our lives transition drastically from summertime to wintertime here, putting away the fishing poles and getting out the skis. There is something magical about seeing the fireweed mark the transition time between summer and fall.
In the summer of 2019, the state of Alaska experienced several substantial forest fires. The Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula, near where I live, burned 170,000 acres of land. This mostly took place in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. While it began with lightening and was an acceptable burn to take down some old dead trees, it quickly turned into a terrifying nightmare that filled the air with flames and smoke. It also crossed the highway, cutting off the central and southern Kenai Peninsula from the rest of the state of Alaska.
Firefighters from around Alaska and the rest of the United States worked hard to contain it and protect structures like our awesome public use cabins.
In the summer of 2021, after a full recovery summer for the land and a healing summer for humans with a break from the COVID pandemic, the fireweed bloomed in droves. Because fireweed lives up to its namesake and blooms out of the charred remains of fires. Yes, it grows other places, but its magic is best seen when it pops up out of the ashes to make the earth more beautiful again.
I chose this as a focus for my public ministry as a pastor, wedding officiant, coach and partner in ritualizing the mundane because no matter where your life has taken you, we are all searching for the beauty out of the ashes,
for the blooms out of the despair, for the fireweed out of the fire. Whether you are transitioning from solo living to partnered living in marriage, moving from life into death, from the present into the future,
we are all on a journey searching for bloom of beauty in our lives.
Let me join you in finding the fireweed!
In the summer of 2019, the state of Alaska experienced several substantial forest fires. The Swan Lake Fire on the Kenai Peninsula, near where I live, burned 170,000 acres of land. This mostly took place in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. While it began with lightening and was an acceptable burn to take down some old dead trees, it quickly turned into a terrifying nightmare that filled the air with flames and smoke. It also crossed the highway, cutting off the central and southern Kenai Peninsula from the rest of the state of Alaska.
Firefighters from around Alaska and the rest of the United States worked hard to contain it and protect structures like our awesome public use cabins.
In the summer of 2021, after a full recovery summer for the land and a healing summer for humans with a break from the COVID pandemic, the fireweed bloomed in droves. Because fireweed lives up to its namesake and blooms out of the charred remains of fires. Yes, it grows other places, but its magic is best seen when it pops up out of the ashes to make the earth more beautiful again.
I chose this as a focus for my public ministry as a pastor, wedding officiant, coach and partner in ritualizing the mundane because no matter where your life has taken you, we are all searching for the beauty out of the ashes,
for the blooms out of the despair, for the fireweed out of the fire. Whether you are transitioning from solo living to partnered living in marriage, moving from life into death, from the present into the future,
we are all on a journey searching for bloom of beauty in our lives.
Let me join you in finding the fireweed!