This one is late. I’m grateful that my dayjob provides stability in my life but the last few weeks of it have been tough. Among the toughest of my whole career. I’ve worked a lot of overtime and this means I’ve not been writing or making art as much. In addition to this, my valley is on fire again. Though this time the north and - more severely - the south regions are the affected areas. In the southern part, the entire town of Summerland - 12 000 people, 6000+ homes has been evacuated. The Prime Minister of my province has declared a state of emergency. The highway going north and south is closed. The only way out of my town now is west. I’m pretty confident my town will be spared at least for now. And I count myself lucky that just the evening before the highway closed I was driving back home from meeting a rancher to buy beef. Had my meeting been 6 hours later, I would be stuck in another town now. Burning money on lodging and food.
I invite to join your prayers with mine in support of the families whose homes burned down and are now displaced and suddenly homeless and in support of fire fighters and emergency response crews in the region who are working ‘round the clock to gain control of this wildfire.
I don’t feel it would be appropriate for me to be posting light-hearted pieces of inspiration here today but it is entirely appropriate to post a Saint of the Week.
“Saint Florian was a Roman army officer who held an administrative post in Noricum, a Roman province that included what is now Austria. In 304, during the Christian persecutions of the emperor Diocletian, Saint Florian publicly revealed he was a Christian and was subsequently tortured and killed for his faith.”
The reason he became associated with firefighting is not clear but it emerges in the middle ages. Possibly it is because initially Florian was to be put to death by burning but he declared:“light a fire, and I will climb upon it.”
St Florian is commonly depicted calmly dousing a fire with a bucket of (no doubt) Holy Water. And the Florian cross still adorns firetrucks to this day.
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