church burning

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Where the peace is broken, somehow the heart breaks with it.

Today, on the front page of the local newspaper, there was a picture of a 170-year-old Congregational Church in nearby Cummington ... engulfed in flames.

Someone had taken the trouble to build it. Others had taken the trouble to gather in it. Setting aside the Christian proclivity to pester others with their persuasion, still, it was a place of succor and creativity. No harm done ... and yet early Sunday morning, the harm was done.

No cause for the fire has been named, but the fire chief said that fighting a church fire was possibly the worst ... big, airy, high-ceilinged places where fire has a field day.

The fires of change and time burn down what is harmless and what is harmful. They burn without regard to tears or laughter or love. Who lit these fires? Who put them out?

And what nourishment can this broken heart provide?
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