To Blazes With It

Its no joke for folks in Central Florida today, wild fires involving thousands of acres are destroying homes and forcing evacuations. This morning I read about people trying to save their homes with garden hoses and I could only imagine how powerless that feels. Well, I could imagine it fairly well as I remembered the first time my son and I burned off the winter dead stuff from an acre and a half rise behind our house back when we lived in the country in Indiana. The wild growth stood about six feet tall, mighty good top soil there, and it hadn't been cut or buned in years. I knew nothing about burning except that we had a good buffer of green grass between the hill and the house, a road on the other side and a creek to the west. And a garden hose. Man talk about a hellacious blaze! I lost confidence in our buffer lawn and it was scary as hell. We had had plenty of rain so the fire burned the dead stuff and nothing more. Oh, and it sort of scorched the power line pole pretty good. We got that put out thanks to Nick's vigilance. But to see the world around your house going up in flames like those must be truly horrifying.
This new story about wildfires came to mind as I read Crunchy Chicken's really thoughtful post this morning about security and what life should be about http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com/ .
It made me grateful that we are going off to do some really meaningful work and have the wherewithal to make this sort of change without hardship, only minor aggravations. I hope I can maintain this sense of gratitude, for my life, my loving partner, the interesting challenges I have face and remember that security is as fleeting and illusory as misfortune.