A feature of church, school, and Boy Scout camps I attended was the evening campfire. Sometimes campers helped stack the wood in a cement ring, filling in lower spaces with twigs, leaves, and other materials that would serve as the starter. Once the evening meal ended, campers gathered around to hear stories, sing songs, cook s’mores, and drink hot chocolate.
The fire gave light that cast shadows off the faces of those gathered. Since most camps were in the foothills where temperatures dropped after sunset, fire also provided warmth. As the time around the fire extended, campers would, at times, bunch closer together to stay warm.
Not a few puppy love crushes were spawned at such fires, a magical internal fire kindled. It did not take long for campers to develop a connectedness, the cohering of a group through shared experience, both illuminated and warmed by fire. When the camp ended, we campers parted with pledges to keep in touch that, if my case is any example, seldom happened, no matter how solemnly promised.
While we were at camp together, though, we were part of something bigger than ourselves, a community. That felt good. Neither our political beliefs, if we had any, nor our ethnicity mattered.
I never served in the military. Several of my friends did, a few in combat circumstances. In the context of battle, being under fire is not a good thing. The obvious purpose of the fire is to kill, or at least deter one from advancing toward whomever is doing the firing.
From what I have read, seen depicted in movies, and heard from my friends, the basic instinct when under fire, apart from not being killed, is to do your best to protect your comrade in arms. So many of the stories about battlefield heroism derive from the actions of one soldier to protect the lives of others. And no soldier would willingly leave a wounded comrade if there was any chance to bring that person to safety.
Under fire, a community forms, rooted in the training soldiers receive and the time they spend preparing for battle. But, if what I have learned is accurate, it is the fire to which soldiers are subjected that forges the lasting bonds of community. Under fire, no one asks about political beliefs, and bullets do not discriminate by race. Those levels of community seem to last beyond combat, even when veterans don’t often see one another.
Our friends lost their home in the Thomas Fire in Ventura County, California in December 2017. So did over 500 others. We visited them a few months later and saw silent testimonials to the random destructiveness of fire in the many cement slabs filled with charred remnants of many lives. These houses and people had formed the well-tended upper middle class neighborhood winding up the street we had visited only a few months before.
Some families decided not to rebuild and put their lots up for sale. Others eventually decided to rebuild after a period of recovery from the shock and grief. Our friends never hesitated about building a new home on their land and began to gather their burned-out neighbors into a group that moved forward together, learning about insurance, contractors, building codes, etc.
Our friends observed that their pleasant-enough neighborhood had coalesced into something different following the fire. People who were once content just to know a neighbor’s name now shared stories in the manner of good friends.
We visited them again when their new house was well under construction. They invited us to join the group on its monthly tour of each other’s new houses, completed or in process. As they milled about looking at structural and design features, they chatted about kids and jobs and Ventura happenings. Each family seemed to know a lot about the others in the group.
I could not help but feel the warmth of that community forged from fire. No one talked about political or religious beliefs. In the circumstances, they didn’t matter.
The Dalai Lama once noted that, “as we recognize others’ suffering and realize we are not alone, our pain is lessened…you realize that you are not a solitary cell.”
Our friends hope the new community endures beyond the end of construction, morphing into a small interest group that can advocate for the neighborhood, becoming one of the historically American building blocks in politics. Time will tell whether the effect of the Thomas Fire on that community is more like the campfire or being under fire.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter. People of a Certain Age, we have all experienced community in some form or another. We understand that, despite our seemingly innate drive to individuate, we value being part of something bigger than ourselves.
Camp fire, enemy fire, wildfire; all can be catalysts for community that does not depend on our politics, religious beliefs, ethnicity, nationality. That is the community of humanity.
Sometimes, it takes fire to forge a community and force us to see what really matters.
Daniel E. White
December 9, 2019