Often, during a homily or while kneeling during the prayers of the people, I’ll glance over toward the gathered congregation and see a strange, otherworldly sight: a single beam of light, pouring down into the congregation, its path articulated by the swirling mist of incense, falling on a favored individual. Often, these people will have their eyes closed against the blinding brightness, which only serves to heighten the sense of the strange, heavenly calm, the sudden instance of an eternal brightness pressing out at the seams of the world in our moment of worship. 

I, too, bear that fire in me.