The Fire Inside

Field Note: A 500-year-old tree in Oregon is burning. So are we.

In Oregon, an extraordinary thing is happening. An ancient Douglas fir, known as the Doerner Fir, a giant, is on fire. Not a forest fire; just one tree, more than 320 feet tall and nearly five centuries old. From the road, it looks sound. Yet, it burns from the inside.

It's a vivid image of endurance, but also a quiet and relentless reminder of our own lives. We too may stand tall and appear strong while a fire smoulders within us. Sometimes that inner flame is a marvellous passion: the burning conviction of purpose, the warmth of love, the flicker of creativity. At other times, it's a silent weariness: grief, burnout, or hidden exhaustion.

One fire fuels us. The other drains. Both begin on the inside. Both are invisible to a casual glance. And each shapes us more than what others can see. The gift and challenge is to notice which flame we carry, and to choose how we will tend it.

The Fire That Fuels

One fire fuels us. It's the spark of creativity, the warmth of compassion, the call to live fully. It doesn't consume; it energises.

A sense of purpose is what keeps a heart alive. Not the kind of purpose you can measure with achievements or possessions, but the kind that comes from knowing your life is part of something bigger. A cold heart can't be warmed by a full calendar or a full stomach. It is only warmed by connection: by love, by hope, by grace.

The Fire That Fatigues

But there is another fire: the fire that fatigues.

Along the Alcan highway, a weathered sign reads: "Choose Your Rut Carefully… You'll Be in It for the Next 200 Miles." It's meant for drivers, but it could just as well be for us. Many live in long, rutted routines. From the outside, everything looks fine, even successful. Inside, though, there's a slow burn.

I've had seasons when life looked full from the outside. The calendar was packed, the to-do list never empty, and people said kind things about the work I was doing. By most measures, it counted as success. Yet inside, I felt hollow. It wasn't a crash or a breakdown, more like a slow fire burning at the edges of joy. I told myself to push through, to keep smiling, to carry on. But the more I pressed ahead, the more it drained me. There's a word for it: burnout.

What finally cooled the fire wasn't another achievement. It was smaller things: stepping out of the rush, watching the sky change at dusk, making space for silence, choosing friendship over busyness. Almost without noticing, the hollow began to fill again. The fire that threatened to consume me gave way to something steadier, smaller, but more alive.

The lesson is simple: notice the rut. When the fire inside is hollowing you out, step back. Pull over. Gaze at the sunset, trace the stars. Let silence have its turn.

Tending the Flame

As of this writing, the Doerner Fir still stands, though its branches smoke and its heartwood has burned. Its survival now depends on care: firefighters are pouring water, and crews are watching closely. It cannot be left alone.

We are not so different. If the fire inside us is passion, it needs air and fuel to burn. We fan it with rest, with creativity, with friendship, with practices that remind us who we are.

If the fire inside is burning out, it needs relief. We cool it by naming our weariness, by letting others see what smoulders unseen, by stepping back, not as failure, but as faithfulness to our own humanity.

And even when the flame feels more like smoke than fire, Isaiah reminds us, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out." Even our faintest flames are not forgotten.

Both kinds of fire matter. One propels us; the other warns us. The question is never whether the flames come. It is whether we will tend them well, so that, like the fir in Oregon, we may still be standing when the smoke clears.