You stand on your porch and your dog hesitates in going out. The sky is hazy, like a barbeque gone bad or a day of smoking meat gone well. You think nothing of it.
Thirty minutes later, your friends, your father, your sister begin to text you. “The church is on fire!” they say. “The church is on fire!” You step outside and realize the smoke filling your lungs is from the church—only a short drive away—the place you spent the duration of your adolescence and early adulthood.
You watch as smoke pours from the roof, the greyness not able to squash the end of a cold, but sunny, first day of spring. You think to yourself, “They can save it. Maybe only the narthex will be ruined. They can save it.”
You watch as the smoke reveals flames and the flames are red and dark and angry. This is not small. This is not simple. This will not end easily. Your heart aches to be there in person, but the world we live in is incredible and at your fingertips you have access to see overhead. To watch as the flames eat away at the entirety of a sanctuary which, at one point in time, was your life.
The cross stands. It stands as smoke and fire and debris begin to surround it. The sight is unreal. Like something you have only ever seen in movies filled with darkness and deceit and destruction.
You watch as the cross disappears into the roof which will soon collapse, sinking into itself as the fire rises from three-alarm to four-alarm. The flames are strong and they do not submit to the desires of man. They eat away at everything within their reach, spewing ash onto concrete you once blissfully walked on as a teenager.
You watch it burn and know that the church is more than just a building, but the memories play in your mind without your permission. Memories which make it seem like an old friend and not brick and mortar.
You think of plaid skirts and first love. You think of friendships that have lasted twenty years. You think of preschoolers and third graders you taught dancing on stage. You think of your brother dressed as Santa Claus. You think of white dresses and caps and gowns. Graduations and graduations and graduations.
You think of piano recitals on the grand piano and the way your chest heaved, an indistinguishable concoction of nerves and excitement, as your student played. You think of Sunday morning specials, your violin tucked under your chin and your shaking legs.
You think of Easter and Christmas. Performances with music and color and light. You think of your brother, whose popularity has often named you Jonathan’s sister. You think of him in the same row watching every single play. You think of being twelve-years old, playing a demon and being dragged down the aisle by someone you would come to admire. You think of driving the Gator to park buses—all those buses—that would come to see the shows.
You think of all the Sunday school classes you taught. Your husband’s drawings on the white board. The students. Picnics and pies in the face. You think of Sunday morning after Sunday morning after Sunday morning.
You think of those who have gone on. Lives which have been celebrated.
The fire is unyielding. Three hours from when it began and it only looks more violent, angrier, threatening to touch the halls which were once your school. Once again it rises, to a five-alarm and then, eight. People compose prayers and eulogies, their hearts in their words. The streets are glowing bright like Times Square.
You are in shock. Your heart is breaking in a different way than it has ever broken before—it is being torn to pieces, watching a destruction you are powerless to stop. Any pause in the live coverage is frustrating. You reload and reload and reload, desperate for more information. You ignore the TV show you put on as a distraction. When the live coverage returns, you hope for something new. For a phoenix to rise from the ashes.
Your bed is rocks beneath your body and you cannot sleep knowing the fire is still raging. You pray and pray and pray. Sometimes you don’t know the words to say, but still you pray.
You know the church is not a building, you thought this at the start. You think this again and again and again. The most important thing, people, remain safe and secure. You know that in this, God is speaking. That nothing surprises God.
Your shock continues into the morning. You devour the news reports like a smorgasbord, going back for more and more and more. The ruins are like a city attacked. The cross is in the wreckage.
But the sun has still risen. And the day, still new.
You remind yourself; the church is not a building. God is speaking. You tell yourself to listen.
This is beautiful, Jess. Thank you for putting into words how we were all feeling. Absolutely beautiful!
Thank you for saying what I couldn’t put into words…absolutely beautiful.