04/22/01
A fire-tested love
The fire was brief, but very hot. Not much escaped. Since the
fire was in my daughter’s apartment bedroom, the losses were tangible
and emotional. She wasn’t there, but the intense blaze consumed
clothing, carpet, cosmetics—just about everything she had gathered
for a life on her own. The scene was sad: a small TV, melted into
itself; charred dresses; singed shoes.
Between smoke and flame, not much was salvageable. One, however,
is worth telling about.
It is a white porcelain bust of the Madonna, very stylized and
quite old. It was my wife’s when she was a young child, given
for some sacramental event. Through the years, the haloed, serene
Mary has managed to occupy the dresser-top of each of our daughters.
It fell to our youngest, by virtue of being the last to possess
it, to keep when she left home.
In the fire, it was blasted with heat and darkened with soot.
But Mary survived.
We brought her home, along with whatever few possessions—most
perfumed with acrid smoke—we could save. Most will end up being
tossed. But Mary, we cleaned.
The soot scrubbed off, restoring the white porcelain. Mary’s enigmatic
smile returned, and the family heirloom—worthless, except for
the connection it signified—was ours again.
Then we looked closer: along the base of the figurine, the glaze
had cracked and crazed. Whether from the heat of the fire or from
the age and handling received over nearly five decades, two cross-county
moves and several shorter treks we don’t know. Only that in the
fire soot filled the cracks and now Mary looked a little ragged.
At first there was concern; after all, Mary, icon of Christians
everywhere, was no longer perfect. This Mary, at least, was flawed.
But in that flaw is a very real and powerful parable: When we
perceive our faith perfect and out of reach, we distance ourselves
from it. We are unable, sometimes, to see the connection between
the God who loves us perfectly and our own struggles and failings,
even the places where we are a little frayed and ragged around
the edges; in other words: our imperfections.
The truth is, of course, that only when we see that we, like that
bust of Mary, can be loved in spite of our imperfections, can
we, finally, appreciate the touch of a loving God.
Tom Sheridan
Editor and General Manager
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