Refiner's Fire

What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how [exact] and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Hamlet: Hamlet Act II, Scene II

Man is great and man is dust. Literally we are rather equal halves of both. On the one hand we have bodies that were originally formed from the dust of the earth. On the other hand, our spirits which give life to our bodies are the offspring of the God of the Universe. I have just finished The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. I must admit great surprise on my part. I never thought I would read let alone like a book about war. Yes, I do thoroughly enjoy books about war between vampires and werewolves, etc, but that's not real! This is of course the major draw for me. I dislike unpleasant things that are real. I understand that war and violence are a part of this mortal life, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. So I don't. All that aside, I really enjoyed this book. Enough that I bought my own copy of it, before I finished reading it. Those who know me well, will understand what that means.

For those who are as unfamiliar with this book as I was before I heard the title at a book club meeting, it is about the battle fought at Gettysburg during the Civil war. It is told from the perspective of several of the men in charge, mostly generals. That aspect was mildly confusing, but I got to know so many different characters on such a personal level that it really brought out what war was like in that time. It's not like movies and fiction books, where there is a very clear evil bad guy and there are a few scrappy good guys who have to pull off a fantastic victory. Both sides believed themselves to be right and it is easy to see both sides of the argument.

The northerners in part were fighting to stop slavery. Some men were fighting simply because there was some excuse and didn't really care what the fighting cause was. The southerners on the other hand were not fighting for slavery. They were fighting to preserve their right to live as they chose. I have never and will never condone slavery in any form, but the concept of fighting to preserve one's rights rings true to the foundation of this country. So essentially everyone was fighting for equal rights for different groups of people.

I have been reading a lot of pre-civil war history in A History of Us, Vol 4, with the kids and the author makes the point several times that one major reason that slavery needed to be stopped was that once it is legal for one group of people to be denied basic human rights, it is that much easier to put restrictions on others as well. Limit the rights of one and you limit the rights of all. In the end that and the grace of God, is why the north won. This country could not continue if the very base of why it was formed was being dismantled one bit at a time. It was a hard lesson to learn, but that, like I tell my kids, is why it is so important to read about history. If we don't know where we've been, how will we know where to go?

At the beginning of the last day of the battle, the Union troops led by Chamberlain are resting and preparing for a day of battle. They notice the fight beginning at the far end of the army more than a mile away, they have been through great trial between exhaustion, lack of food, and long days of marching or fighting. Chamberlain is worried about his men, he is mourning the loss of all the men whose bodies he can see littering the field. He lost almost half of his men during the previous day's battle.

They were dwindling away like the sands in a glass. How long does it go on? Each one becoming more precious. What's left now is the best, each man a rock. But now there are so few. We began with a thousand and so whittled down, polishing, pruning, until what we had yesterday was superb, absolutely superb, and now only about two hundred . . .

I can only imagine that this is similar to how our Father in Heaven has and does feel so often. After the great war in heaven, the first of many refiner's fires, sifting through for those who were strongest, most able. Then continuing as we enter and endure this earth life. War is a perfect symbolism for life. The survival of the fittest. Those who are fastest and smartest survive in war. Those who are strongest and righteous survive in life. I don't want to be pruned away. I don't want to be one of those who is whittled off, one who didn't make it. I want to be faster and stronger and survive the refiner's fire of life.