Hotspots

On May 10th, Mother's Day, a wildfire started about 5 miles east of Dulce. It grew in size to close to 450 acres. According to the news reports aircraft were used to drop retardant on it and a number of crews were called in, so that by the next day there were over 100 firefighters on the scene. Ten days later there were still firefighters on the scene, as the fire was not yet completely out.

My Midwestern brain can better understand the size of the land parcel when I think in terms of a section, which is one square mile. This fire was roughly 1 mile long by 1/2 mile wide, plus another piece 1/2 by 1/2 mile, or roughly twice the size of the farmland where I used to deer hunt. Though I've never fought a wild fire it seems to me that a fire of that size could be easily controlled and extinguished by a crew of that size, but that was not the case.

What was the problem? Hotspots in the fire. Hotspots in places where it was hard to drop retardant, or hard for the firefighters to get to in order to do their job. I've run near where the fire was and the place is wooded, with hills and arroyos. I imagine that it is land that is hard to walk, even in the best conditions, let alone when outfitted as a firefighter.

That image of lingering hotspots came to mind as I was thinking today of some of the things that have been in the news over the past few weeks connected to acts of racism.

I think that most of us, or at least most of my readers, long to live in a culture that is free of racism. The racist aspect of parts of our nation's history is ugly. And that ugliness is also present in the history of many of our communities, and also in our own lives. Our country has made considerable progress but the recent events remind me, and us, that collectively there remains a long ways to go.

Racism is a sin and like any other sin it needs to be dealt with in order to live a life that is pleasing to God. A life that brings him glory. In my own life there have been sins that I have been powerfully delivered from, but there are also sins where the progress has been very incremental and piecemeal. A step or two forward and then one, maybe two steps back. A hotspot flares up where I thought the fire was out. Racism is one of them. And so this post is an invitation to look into your own life and see where there may be hotspots of racism that need to be dealt with. And seek for God to be at work in you to put the fire out, to his glory. Amen.