Lord, let this fire in me not die until I forge something from its heat. Nor let it consume me, so that I have nothing left when it burns out. This fire — I know not from where it came, for I was sleeping before its flames caught hold; I remember not the days when I was not within its steady burn (before it is like a memory of another life, another world, irreal in quality and less substantial than a passing dream). This fire: may it be directed toward the good: I know my finite means of discernment cannot see all ends, so I may only ask this of you, Lord, that none are scorched along its path. And blessed Savior, may this fire not lift me to any false height, that I may think somehow I am more graced than the next human being — for there are some who have held the darkness at bay with the most meager of candles, while I, instead, have wasted much light. Let it be that I not have wasted it all; and let me not have burned in vain. Amen.