Watching The Big Bang

I regularly sit in front of a roaring kiln in the dark early morning hours.  I love this about my falls; it is always the same, cold mornings, clothes half buttoned and hat over pillow hair I stumble forth in the cold dark to stoke up the kiln.  I sit beside its warmth and rumble drinking hot coffee and reading with God.  There is sacredness to this, God, fire, air, dirt.  Inside that kiln fire is forcibly redistributing matter from one form to another, a cosmic big bang caged in a steel box in front of me.  Oxides and dirt are melting and mixing with carbon and creating colors that painters couldn’t imagine.  These are some of the most sincere times on earth, times brought to us by God, Maker of fire, air and dirt.