No one talked much.
The gathering held no
demands.
Men sat around the fire
waiting for nothing but expecting and already receiving the reward for being
there. As the laughter and shouts of children played in the distance, their
fathers and their father’s friends considered in conversation and in silence
the glory of their lives.
As each man arrived that
evening the satisfaction intensified within the circle. Everyone knew their
place and their place was here. To belong means that you become less of
yourself but more than you could be alone. So, everyone became more and more
and each man could sense it.
Those absent were
mentioned and missed yet all was complete. It was complete for it was not the
first, but one, of several such occasions. Every event is as complete as an
event can be. They are memories in the making—some better than others and none
contrivable.
So we sat together.
The fire danced before us
masterful and bright; warming our legs and keeping us mindful of mystery. For a
few moments we considered this phenomenon of light and heat and energy confined
within a circle of stone and maintained with split wood, leaves and twigs. We
spoke of it as magical, as an ethereal form constantly restructuring itself.
The conversation moved
further into creation as a breeze caressed the trees. We heard a sound and
someone pronounced it to be an owl’s call. There is silence built into owl
wings, another explained and somehow the conversation turned to the fact that
everyone is known by some part of their story more than by their name. Then we
soared. The stars were shining and the sky was ours. The stories came easy, of
fish caught and trails hiked. We laughed knowing and relating and appreciating
every detail. Tipped canoes, gathered wood, timber frames and back country
camping.
We brought some of the
past back into the present, considered it, and then acted as if it went away
and returned back to its own place. But it didn’t, it stayed there with us as
it always does, as it always has.
One of the men read from a
book; from part of a story somewhere in the middle. We sat in the middle of our
own story listening. The historic fiction was close to home. We laughed at the
realism and lauded the author, a favorite of the group. And considered how
magnificent and normal all stories are.
Then, another ritual
began. Iron skillets were carefully placed in the fire. The spoonful’s of lard
swirled on the super-heated surface and then evened out in an invisible pool and
prepared to answer the battered catfish with a sizzle. Those who tended the
iron pans did so by lantern and flashlight. Glimpses of brown perfection
assuring that the heat and turning had been naturally and properly timed.
Hushpuppies, unknown to
many but well known here, were also part of the evening fare landing in men’s
laps on the cheapest of paper plates.
So we sat and ate together.
The fish was fried, white-flake
perfection; the taste amplified by the sense of place.
The men ate with the
satisfaction of the company they were keeping and the work they had come from
and the conversations that continued.
We reveled in the simplicity
of our thought, our food, and our friendship. This was one evening, a block of
hours, an increment of life well lived.
Responsibility rightly
drew some away earlier but we all got home late smelling of wood smoke.
Lying in bed thinking of
the morrow, of the future where we would carry the riches of this night and all
of its memory; feeling and knowing that if we were no different at least the
difference had been maintained, making us more of who we are or guaranteeing it.
We are formed by these events;
they contribute to our person and shape us. Each man contributes to how we
should or should not be. Their words, we echo or discard.
We discover and then
subliminally imitate—expression and humor, concern and importance.
We are brothers born of
God finding our way together; as it should be.
For some, we are imitating
our fathers. They too sat around open fires without agenda.
The presence of other men
in their lives—shaping—all together telling their stories until they all become
one of our own; recollected and shared.
God must delight in such
men who can talk of Him in such a place and at such a time. He is in their
thoughts as naturally as His presence is known. And they know.
They know that He is the
reason for their delight; all these image-bearers imitating the Trinity in love
and laughter and communion as they enjoyed the three-tiered world of the
heavens, the earth and the seas by eating fish under the stars.
What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?
For You have made him a little lower than
the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and
honor.
You have made him to have dominion over the
works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his
feet,
