Firelight
Flash Fiction
As he clipped by a steady ascension of pines and Georgia wildwood there began to be a small translucent light that shone forth from his windshield. Up in the far corner of his dash was a small splotch of yellow, it clung, and hung in the air like a small glowing crystal, shining beautifully against the dusk of the summer evening. As he saw the juice, frozen in a kind of climbing stupor, it was evident to him that the glow was of a lightning bug. He had adored these bugs all of his life and now having owned a home would stay up for hours on his back porch watching them say things to him in morse code. As he whipped by the veil of blue wood and dying fence lines the dead bug seemed to guide him in his path back home. A joy seemed to fill his heart and as this small joy became larger and larger a quote from a bible professor he once had suddenly stumbled into his mind. It went something like this.
“Class. There is not a single thing on this side of heaven that a person can do to will themselves to the creator. Not one thing. Not one prayer. Not a good deed. Nothing. And this is because with Adam you sinned. If we remember, God is a God of justice, and so justification and sanctification are utterly separated from the will of the created. You are condemned and because of this the only way you are saved is through God’s utter loving grace, and this is only done and completed through Christ dying on that cross and taking on the debt of your sins. Not a morsel of man’s will can bring man back. Only God can.”
As he looked upon the black road ahead of him the yellow lines clipped at a violent pace that shot through him and his car and he thought about Christ, the Christ described to him by his professor, and the Christ described to him all of his life. He thought about the lighting bug that got shot into his plexiglass (plexiglass that was probably made by some middle-aged woman in a sweatshop somewhere off the Coast of the China Sea) was now another small allegory for his humanity and existence. Given to him. Unwillingly of itself. In the form of Christ by the hand of God. Surely, he thought, Christ would not use this bug as an example? Only God can, and even then in that moment, he could not will himself to say the Father. He thought of his college’s motto. “In all things Christ preeminent.”
The joy that had come to him so quickly had now vanished and the feeling he felt after most sermons growing up had now resurfaced. It bubbled at the top of his chest and clipped through him like the yellow lines ahead. These sermons he heard all his life, for as amazing and thorough as they were, would always dovetail and come together nicely at the end into a tightly ordered moral tale of how the congregation should be more aware of their sinful nature. The form and nature of these sermons were always the same and they were energizing. It would energize the people and it would even energize him leaving him most Sundays reflecting and thinking about the nuances of his sin and the new ways he could analyze it better.
What sin though? He wondered as he drove through the night. What will? As he neared his home he felt the cold colors of the mountain’s shade begin to permeate his skin and wondered if more lightning bugs would find his front view window again. To make him warm. To maybe bring some comfort. The night had completely darkened and the woods that passed by were now shadowy figures. Cold giants that loomed over him as he continued to race home. As he thought about the lightning bugs he wished for them to come quickly. Like they did in his backyard, magically lifting from the grass as soon as the sun slipped behind the pines. He wished for them to come in the millions. Unwilled by themselves and yet somehow willed by their biology and nature. Willed by their God. As he thought about this, he wondered also if that was even something to ask for? Asking God to sacrifice more innocent lighting bug lives on behalf of him. More lives for an allegorical Christ? More lives for some hope? More lives for his coldness to be taken from him. As he climbed the road no crystals formed, and no yellow juice gelled to his window seal. The only glow that shone forth was from the lone lightning bug that had been smashed into his window shield before. However, it was now beginning to slowly fade and lose its color as its yellow light slowly slipped away until it finally became the road in front of him. What Christ? He thought.
As he entered the last stretch of his drive home he had lost hope. No bugs had come. No great light had emerged from the trees. No morse code telling him things. Just stretches upon stretches of black and bleak distant star light. The mountain had completely found her darkness for the night and found a deep far off sleep. As he rounded the last bend before his home he saw a long blanket of light stretch far off in the distance. As his car straightened into the road rising gently from the trees on the horizon this blanket of light slowly formed into itself and spread over the canopies. As he drew nearer and nearer, the glow became larger and more magnificent. The lights began to sparkle and breathe, they blinked and all things began to slow. His heart became slower and a warmth like no other filled him.
When he finally reached them there were a thousand of them. Their lights blinked in unspeakable order and breathed as if they were one and in complete silence like a fire-storm they hit him. Instead of screams and pain, and noises that no one should ever hear, there was quiet, and a slow song broke out from behind the rays. Hanging low and sweet on the flying golden beams, sharp diamonds of red began to hit his skull. Slowly, it sang to him. “Will you ever remember me? Will you ever remember me? Oh son of God?” And the firelight filled him.
A small note:
Shortly after I wrote this story I got in a car accident, and this accident occurred while turning onto the street where our Church is located, happening shortly before Divine Liturgy. A motorist came flying over a hill and you can guess what happened next. Luckily no one was seriously injured and all was fine. However, I would like to say that this is no coincidence at all. The story and the accident and if we know anything about creation and art, ingenuity and revelation, these are things that do not just fall out of the sky. They are curated, chased, and are manifestations of observations and curiosities that have been collected in the flesh, that one day show up at our doorstep ready to be understood. Sometimes in our dreams. Sometimes in our art. These gifts are uncovered by whom? And what might the ultimate gift be? And who are we created by? And by what means are we created of?
In a world that does not believe in theosis, or believe in what it specifically means, then this can be hard to digest and accept. It was hard for me when I began learning it and still can be hard. However, before I knew of theosis and how Christ is theosis, my life had a lot of holes in it. Big ones. With my worldview there was no incentive, no meaning, nothing that reflected the creative God I saw in Genesis with Adam and Eve, and the world around me, that gave me a strong telos for this life on earth before the new heavens came. That’s because my worldview didn’t go deep enough. If this story, and maybe its backstory, at least helps shed some light into that reality, the deepness of God’s creation, then I am glad. And if you do not know what theosis means you should look it up too, and look up the context it works within. And if you do not know what the heck this story even means that’s okay too. I am not completely sure what it means in its fullness and all my stories for that matter. I just hope you get a glimpse of it.