Fire!

I took my daughter for the Easter Vigil service last night. Mass began outside of the church, in front of a [small] bonfire. Then everyone went into the church, lit our candles and proceeded into the sanctuary. During the procession, my 15 year-old remarked to me that this was a really neat service and that she had never before been to a service where candles were lit. That really surprised me because I thought for sure I had taken her to a Midnight Mass for Christmas. But I guess not.

As we were standing with our candles during the first part of the two+ hour mass, I glanced over at my “little” girl, holding her lit candle and staring at it. She seemed mesmerized by the flame. I imagined she was tired and already bored by the service that seemed to be dragging on particularly long. So I turned back toward the altar and left her to quietly stare at her candle.

It was during one of the Bible readings that fire flared in the corner of my vision. I turned to see my daughter, the honors student, with the side of her head ablaze. The tips of her hair had touched the flame of the candle she was gazing at. And fire shot up the wick of her hair. I did not realize how quickly hair burns! (Fortunately, she has long hair.)

Instant reactions are funny. My first instinct was to snuff the fire out with my hands. But I had a lit candle in one hand, so I could not snuff out the fire. And if I dropped my candle, it could set the church on fire. So I paused while I thought what to do. A split second later, I remembered I could blow out the candle in my hand. But by that time, my sweet daughter (who is a trombonist in her school band) took a breath and BLEW. It took all of two puffs for her to blow out the plume of fire in her hair.

And so the day was saved. Calamity was avoided. And my daughter got bragging rights to the story of how she had her very own “Michael Jackson moment” at the 2010 Easter Vigil Mass.