Last night I sat on the deck of our home in South Carolina, sipping Kentucky bourbon, watching the dying embers of the fire on which we’d had a barbecue earlier, and listening to the sound of redneck pyrotechnics in the distance. I was a little disappointed that the firework parties being held by our neighbours could not be seen (we are surrounded by trees and hidden in a valley) but then I noticed how the dying embers of the fire were producing a pyrotechnic display of their own. Never had the natural effects of entropy seemed so dazzling. I gazed in grateful awe at the sheer beauty of the ever changing glow and realized how easily we miss the everyday beauty that surrounds us. There’s much to be said for simplicity and a poverty of spirit. I realized that St. Francis would have preferred the pyrotechnics of the fire to the extravagance of fireworks. I realized simultaneously that in this regard I am like St. Francis. It’s gratifying to know that I have at least one thing in common with one of my favourite saints!