"You can kiss your house goodbye," yelled our neighbor in...

"You can kiss your house goodbye," yelled our neighbor in panicked fear, speaking to us on the phone before evacuating her own home. (We were not home at the time.)

The fire in Chelan, Washington, had just leapt over Highway 97, and was about to consume the canyon where four families, ours included, reside. We were told that the videotape on the television news showed flames shooting up to huge heights, and self-constituted winds resembling hurricane force. I called our answering machine and heard the telephone line crackle with static before going dead.

"Home is a power, not a place" came to thought. (This idea comes out in the ninety-first Psalm, among other places in the Bible.) This spiritual fact was clear to us, but the feeling of unfairness seemed overwhelming.

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July 17, 1995
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