The wisest teacher I ever knew was a professor of movement at the conservatory program where I studied Acting. Reid told us one day, (and I'm paraphrasing a 40 year-old memory here,) an actor is a bonfire. One begins with an idea, a spark, and breathes onto it until is starts to flame. Then the artist adds fuel: knowledge, technique, experience, talent. If they are very lucky, that flame becomes a fire. Only than can one add heart and soul - the actor himself steps into the bonfire and is utterly consumed by it. When the performance is finished, nothing remains but a holy mound of glowing ash and embers.
Reid would have said it better than that.
The finest preacher I ever knew was a grieving widower and father: an Episcopal priest with a brilliant mind and a humble humanity that made him irresistible to me. John Hughes came to see me play Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, and invited me to church with the words, "Well, we came to see your show, now you can come see ours." St. Michaels was the only church I've ever attended where I felt really at home, and John Hughes was the welcoming committee. When I was laid-off during the 2008 Recession, John greeted me in the narthex with a hug and a look of bewildered irony. "You're the biggest guy in the parish, and you got downsized?" I've never told him how that lifted my spirits. Not many people could have taken that joke. Not many would have known the right person to tell it to. So, yeah, I think John is a pretty special man. Full disclosure.
We've traveled our own paths through the space between then and now. I stayed in Kentucky and became a fitness coach and companion for people living and dying with chronic illness, especially cancer. John moved home to Wisconsin and became a hospice chaplain. When I mention him to friends and they as me what that means, I always tell them, "He helps people to die." That might sound a little grim, and some people might prefer, "He helps people to stay alive until they die," but no. That's my bag. I help people to fight for life. John and his team help them to live through the end of the fight. It's holy service. John's novel, Heart Like a Bonfire is a story told by people who give and receive that service. They are nurses, aides, patients, caregivers, relatives, and one extraordinary and familiar Episcopal priest who goes about caring for himself and his teammates and his clients with compassion and candor and dignity.
Hughes spends time opening up the hood and exposing the corporate nuts and bolts of a company whose chief business interest seems to be the production of billable documentation. It's infuriating and frustrating, But one does not get into the hospice business for the paperwork. The lion's share of Heart Like a Bonfire is dedicated to the spirits, minds, and bodies of the dying, and the ones who serve them or fail them.
There is nothing theoretical here. No soothing, bumper-sticker theology. These are real stories about real people engaged in a once-in-a-lifetime experience, who must cope with death every single day. Most do not find the guidance they need in orthodoxy and easy answers. As we come to know them, professionals, addicts, atheists and Milwaukee Brewers fans, we witness each discovering their own path, their own perspective on the matter of living and dying. Along the way, the professionals share practical advice like "movement is medicine," and drink plenty of water. The sweep floors and change adults' diapers. They are not so much guides as traveling companions. They don't tell anyone how to die or how to grieve. They just share part of the journey together.
Heart Like a Bonfire is a deeply rewarding read. I imagine it might even appeal to people with no religion at all. As Chaplain Richard (Hughes thinly veiled persona in the book) says, even if the patient does not believe, God exists in the space between us. I suppose that the more conservative a person's theology is the more difficult it might be to accept the attitudes and choices Richard and his team make, but these are such admirable, flawed, loving, human characters, that I hope they might shed light on the value of belief that strays from tradition a little.
Why write a book like this? I think, because it tells a story of which we all share a part. Death and loss and grief connect us all. What are they? Why do they happen? How do we survive them? Everyone who has ever lived has had to confront these questions. I think there is great value in sharing the stories of a few people who have confronted them together, thoughtfully, passionately, and with empathetic wisdom.
Why read it? Because you're going to die. The people and animals you love will die. Some of them may have died already. There were things in these pages that I really needed to hear as I process the losses that seem to come more and more frequently as I approach the middle of my 60s. I expect that wherever you are in the timeline of your own life, whatever role loss has played in your own story, you will also profit from the loving wisdom in this deeply personal novel.
So, what does the enigmatic title mean? What is a heart like a bonfire? The phrase appears twice (that I remember) and I won't spoil the moments for you. To my eye, the phrase is a way of honoring the dignity of all hearts. Just like my acting teacher's bonfire, our lives start with a spark that needs breath and fuel and time to flame. There is sacred light and heat in that flame; it burns for a time, sometimes smoldering, sometimes bursting gloriously, but always, eventually the fuel is consumed, and we are left with the embers and ash of a life worthy of honor and dignity and love.
There is an image near the end of the book where death is described as a trip in a little boat that travels on a river of the survivors' tears. I found such poetry and comfort in this image that I had to stop and catch my breath, taking a moment to honor parents lovers, friends. neighbors... all the ones I have loved who have sailed on that journey, bouyed by the offerings of my own tears.
I hope you will buy John's book. It is a thing of beauty. I hope you'll read it. It will plant seeds and bear fruit in ways you will find wonderful.
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