I still have yet to fully grasp the gravity of the
whole scenario: fire begins, evacuations next, packing up my room and what I
can not live without, and of course the waiting. Still in the voluntary
evacuation zone, I remain at home with my family...waiting, waiting with cars packed ready
to go, ready to leave our house behind if the time comes. Thankfully, I
had just finished packing for New Zealand so I had that part taken care
of. And my sister had just returned from
Costa Rica (not quite what she wanted to come home to).
What happens in the next hour, 2 hours, 72 hours,
is completely up in the air. Never knowing how things are going to turn out in the end. The waiting, waiting to leave, waiting for
more updates, is like waiting for a ticking time bomb to go off. But then
it hits you: that whatever is going to happen is going to happen. You
save what you can and do all that you can. The rest is up to God and
nature.
But, with 20 plus fires burning across the
beautiful state of Colorado, it's hard to see the silver lining in the cloud
(literally). These cities, these mountains, my home, all seem to be going
up in flames and little can be done. But you slowly begin to realize that
nature will, indeed run its course. Homes and sadly lives may not be spared though, a tough pill to swallow for all.
But, deep down, we all know these types of things are meant
to happen. Whether you want to call it
fate, God, nature, or a lesson to learn, this fire and those elsewhere, are happening
for a reason. The cause may never be known and that is unsettling for the
vast majority of people. But maybe the
underlying reasoning for this fire, this destruction, is to make room for new
growth. Maybe it really is “out with the old, in with the new.”
More often than not, getting rid of the old is a scary, frightening, and
messy process.
But without this destruction, maybe the new
wouldn't be quite so stunningly beautiful, a breadth of fresh air, or a
reassuring gesture that life does go on. We may not know what is on the
other side of the mountain, so to speak, or what the new will bring, but we do
know, deep down, this is the natural cycle of life.
It is the fear of the unknown, the fear of this
change, whether that change be positive or negative. Not quite sure of
how things will turn out, we prepare, as best we can. But when the
preparing is over, the waiting begins. And in that waiting, a knowingness
comes forth: that waiting can only be done moment by moment. As is life,
we take each day, moment by moment, breadth by breath, living and loving just
the same, sometimes waiting for the destruction to end and the construction to
begin.
Such is this fire a metaphor for this upcoming
change in my own life. In waiting for
this change, this chance to go abroad for a semester, the days seem to pass
ever so slowly and with the fire, an unsettling feeling has come over me. But I realize that in this moment I can do no
more than what I am doing. I'm done preparing, and now I am waiting, waiting
for this huge change in my life to happen. If we live
moment to moment, holding dear to our loved ones, our secureness, our presence
with the moment, maybe the waiting is no more and our heart and mind open up to
what we have in the present moment.
