Love is a Burning Thing

For me part of the power of June Carter Cash’s Ring of Fire is how it points to the power of love in ways we don’t usually get in our popular culture. This song is love as obsession, love that can tear lives apart.

I find it paired with Walk the Line, Johnny Cash’s attempt to constrain himself for an earlier love.

That didn’t work.

But this one, throwing themselves into the fire, by all appearances worked.

I find something of real importance here.

Now, I live into a tradition that sees the endless suffering of our grasping, of our holding too tightly that which is in fact in flux. I see this as a fundamental truth of our human hurt.

But, those who hope to fix this by stepping away, by not caring, don’t fix much. This is trying to fix the problem by cutting off our lives. It leads to bareness, and a taste of ashes in the mouth.

The one life wasted.

In fact the way is going right through the middle, living full without grasping for a specific outcome, holding on to any of the moments as they race by.

Love, as the song goes, is a burning thing.

And so…

The way?

There is only one path.

Become the fire.