A friend sent me this photo of a painting on the wall of a church he had visited. The picture came in as a fuzzy image at first which sometimes happens when iPhones send pictures to my Not an iPhone. Because I knew the church’s name was Saint Helen I carelessly though that it was a picture of someone showing Saint Helen where to find things.

Eventually I managed to get a clear image and then I thought of the three kings because I thought the animals in the background were camels when I couldn’t see them. Finally my back brain and front brain got together and said, “Look at that picture closely, silly girl!” So I did and figured out what Bible story was really being referenced.

After I had worked my way through the picture* I happened to read a column by someone who was trying to use a metaphor from the Los Angeles fires to suggest action in the Christian life.

Experienced firefighters tell us that the best way to fight a fire is by using an intentionally created and directed blaze to snuff out an advancing conflagration. Perhaps we need to kindle small fires of hope … and let the flames of constructive hopefulness meet and defeat the infernos … that are … raging all around us. https://angelusnews.com/faith/la-fires-year-of-hope-scalia/

NO. NO! Absolutely not! This metaphor does not work. It’s as wrong as I was, when I saw camels in the picture above. In Los Angeles when the Santa Ana winds are blowing, you don’t light anything. It’s Too Late to fight fire with fire. You need water. And as a metaphor, water works perfectly well. The water of life can quench the fires of injustice and cruelty and whatever other infernos are burning around us.

There are undoubtedly times and places when setting a backfire could work, either to put out a blaze or to direct it around a target. The Santa Ana winds in southern California are not that moment or place.

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Here’s a picture of the church altar at Saint Helen.

I think Saint Helen is at the top of this altar… She’s wearing a crown but holding a cross. I also think that below her, dressed as acolytes, are Saint Joseph on the left and Saint Anthony on the right. I base that the lilies they are holding though it doesn’t make total sense. Saint Peter is at the bottom on the left. He’s definitely holding keys. The rest is confusing, if lovely from a distance.

*… which is the new deacon Philip instructing the Ethiopian, in the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 8 …