Keep the Kettle Hot
Responding to the news of the day
The morning is soft, holding its secrets for the day ahead. The kettle is filled and warming, and I, crouching by the wood stove, pick at glowing embers with the poker, inviting flames to lick at the kindling inside. It’s good kindling, old wooden roof shingles left by the previous owners. I’m always mesmerized when they catch, the fire rushing upwards in a fury. I can’t help but regularly wonder, “These fire bombs were on the roof? In the woods?”
Yet the relative quietness of building a fire—even in the woods—feeds me. Yes, the fire roars, muffled by the cast iron box it’s contained in, but my spirit feels nourished. I sit, enchanted by the contentment I feel, simply by nudging pieces of wood around. Life won’t be so complicated, I think, if I can just tend a fire every morning.
I pour hot boiling water onto herbs (nettle, milky oats, gota kola) in my copper colored french press. Some mornings, I dread reading the news while I let the herbs infuse. Some bright morning, I’ll decide forever not to. I also read my favorite Substack articles, and by the time my tea is poured and gone, I’ve checked my email, looked at the calendar, and answered texts. The sun outside gives a cursory light through the shifting clouds, and I know it’s time to march on into a full day.
And marching on is what I must do, yes? Regardless of the news and the flavor of crazy for the day, I must continue with the seemingly mundane and insignificant tasks of daily living. Food must be prepared, animals tended, houses kept, and the people within them raised up and cherished. That’s a whole lot of “must” before the sun sets, and I get busy writing the list of tasks ahead. I’m reminded of a Bible verse as I sit on the stool scribbling to-do’s and nibbling on toast, something about working in quietness and eating my own bread (2 Thess 3:12). Minding my own business, as it were. I go to check on the laundry. I imagine Nehemiah giving me a thumbs up.
I’m about halfway through folding the kitchen linens when I hear the sleepy feet of my five year old padding down the hall. I try, for more time than I wish, to meld today’s news of the outside world with his future, but all that emerges is an invitation to anxiety. “Is it time for my morning snuggle?” he mumbles. And there we are, just sitting, our breaths in sync. I decide to leave the secret things of his future to the Lord, because what else is there?
We go to throw another log onto the fire and suddenly he is animated, launching into spontaneous views and ideas and questions, beginning with immediate breakfast plans. I suppose breakfast is enough to take thought of at the moment, putting away what is or what was or might be outside of our walls. Earlier this morning I had read from Spurgeon that “true believers ought to speak out with calm courage to their own well-grounded reliance upon their God”. As I’m holding my son’s hand and walking him down the hall to get him dressed, I prayed that my work at home was, in essence, a speaking out with calm courage: to simply do the next small things presented to me, in the time I am in, with what I have been given. For He who sees me and overrules all things for my good is faithful, may Jesus Christ be praised. So, today, I’ll just keep the home fires burning and the kettle hot.