Flip Me Over, I'm Done on This Side

As the leaves start to change and Pumpkin Latte signs populate Starbucks windows, I like to always take a little time to grieve the passing of my favorite season - summer.  There is something about summer that I just positively love.  If you've met me in person, you have likely heard me go on and on and on about summer... I will spare you all. 

As I say good bye to summer, I also am saying good bye to my little red tabletop charcoal grill.  Or at least saying, "See you later!"  (Mad props to all those charcoal grill masters who grill through Fall.  I raise my tongs to you.)  Memorial Day 2019 was my first attempt not just at using my little baby grill, but at using any charcoal grill.  I had previously learned the art of grilling on a gas grill - spurred on by the need to make burgers for all my Mount friends during Senior Week down the Jersey shore (none of us knew how to grill, so it resulted in me calling home and having my mom talk me through how to light the grill and subsequently ensure the burgers were sufficiently cooked).  Turns out, charcoal grilling is much more challenging than gas grilling...and this time I wasn't about to call my parents and have them walk me through it.  I was determined to figure it out on my own.  Several hours later, Amy, Elizabeth, and I finally ate our hot dogs and corn on that Memorial Day feast.  

Despite the challenges of starting the grill that first time, I persevered, pulling out the grill repeatedly throughout the summer.  I learned just how determined I could be, and I learned a thing or two about starting a grill.  But...I think grilling also taught me a few things about the spiritual life.  Now, just hear me out before you go opening Google to find something more interesting to read. 

Some days, I was able to get the grill nice and hot, coals burning together creating a beautiful red and white glow.  Other times, I'd get one coal going, but then it couldn't even keep itself warm and would peter out, leaving me with cold hot dogs.  I should have figured this out sooner, but the only way a charcoal grill can even work, is if you have a bunch of hot coals together, heating each other.  Leave a coal by itself, it dies.  In Church world, we often talk about letting your light shine or being a flame - there is a lot of fire imagery.  And it is beautiful and there is truth in it, but really... I think we're more like coals.  

If someone is like a plain coal, untouched, no lighter fluid, no other hot coals around it, if you hold a flame to it...it won't catch.  Sure maybe a little part of it will catch for a brief moment, it will turn a little ashy, but it won't retain the heat necessary to cook a meal.  If someone has no relationship with Jesus, you can't expect one little flame or instance of heat will completely transform the person.  There's nothing there to help it catch.  Now, add a little lighter fluid to the equation... you get instantaneous, bright, burning passion!  It's like when a person goes on a retreat and has an amazing experience and they are on fire, or seemingly so... but after a few weeks, they go back to their usual circles and way of life, and the fire simmers.  Much like with the coals, if they are doused in lighter fluid and then left by themselves, they will not heat the grill.  Like the coal that had nothing, they too will diminish and cool.  It is only when there are many hot coals together that they will continue to burn, they will continue to create heat and spur each other on.  We are the same.  If we are surrounded by others who are striving for sainthood, who are focused on putting Christ at the center of their lives, and will be a source of heat for us, we can continue to grow ourselves and remain hot coals.  But we also need to be the same to others, a hot coal, seeking to grow in faith and understanding, deepening our prayer lives, and striving for virtue, because if we grow cold, those around us risk growing cold.  We need each other's heat, and we need to add to the heat.  When a cold coal is introduced to a group of hot coals, it too will eventually become hot.  And, isn't that how evangelization should work?  It's a welcoming into a Church community who is on fire with Love of Jesus Christ and His Church.  Once surrounded by that love, one can't help but catch.  

Reflecting on the necessity of being surrounded by other hot coals, I became immensely grateful for the true friendships and sisterhoods that the Lord has blessed me with over the years.  These women (and men) who have fostered in me a deeper love of the Lord, simply because they were in love with Him.  I pray and I hope that my own relationship with God has strengthened theirs as well.  It is in these communities, in these relationships that I have been formed into the woman I am today.  And only through such friendships and relationships can I become the woman I am called to be and set the world on fire.  Let us be like hot coals huddled together, not to become insular, but so that we can set the world ablaze!  "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!" (Luke 12:49).  By being coals warming coals (iron sharpening iron), we can be the Church we need to be to transform this modern world!   

I must note, no hot dogs were harmed while I stared off into the hot coals (and sometimes not so hot coals) pondering these thoughts.  Every meal was (eventually) edible.  Probably only because of St. Lawrence's intercession.  Who, by the way, is the patron saint of grillers because he was martyred by being grilled alive.  During which, he was reported to have said, "Flip me over, I'm done on this side!"  Now there is a hot coal, who must have been surrounded by many other hot coals...