The Grease Fire

I like grilling. It is my favorite way to cook. I love a good steak, grilled to perfection, on my backyard grill.

As a boy, my grandfather raised cattle and every year he would divide the meat, from one of the steers, with our family. I can remember having steak every Saturday night and a roast every Sunday. In the winter, my mom would grill our steaks on an indoor little grill we called the Farberware. As an adult, I bought the same little grill and used it often. Later, I bought a unique indoor grill that looked like a waffle maker.

Each of my grills had an important feature that I had completely forgotten, until last Sunday.

Early Sunday morning I decided to use my Crockpot instead of my outdoor grill because I had an odd piece of meat that was somewhere between a roast and a steak and I just didn't know if grilling would work. It was too flat to be a roast but too thick to be a steak , so I decided to slow cook the beef while I was at church. After 5 hours, the beef shredded easily, and the bones came out effortlessly. I had a meeting right after church so I grabbed a container from the cupboard and put the meat away in the fridge.

When I came back, a few hours later, to my surprise there was a thick white substance surrounding my shredded beef. It was an oily sludge and I quickly realized that the grease had separated from the beef and had turned solid when it had cooled. I had forgotten to drain the grease. I had forgotten that the grease drained easily, in the past, from the barbecue, Farberware and George Forman grill.

But instead of draining the meat, I microwaved it and the white film seemed to disappear. I scooped some meat up and put it on my sandwich. My daughter, Macee, decided to make a sandwich with the shredded beef for school the next day and prepared her sandwich and stored it in the refrigerator. When Macee went to eat her sandwich, to her horror, the sandwich was riddled with little pieces of white fat, mixed so badly with the meat that she had to throw the sandwich away. The waste product of fat had ruined her sandwich.

There is a similar substance in our lives that is so awful that destroys families. It is very real and often so pervasive that you can feel it and almost touch it, yet it is so evasive, it is practically invisible. This substance is an oil and grease that fuels the fire of feuds. It fuels animosity and hate. Yet so many deny that it exists, or ever worse, deny that they feed off of it.

It is the "why" of the storm. And the radioactive fallout that is generated from the backlash and backdraft can linger and fester for ages, often the way radioactive waste persists.

Because this substance is so hard to label, some have called it "drama", some call it "toxic," while others simply are at a loss for what to call the fuel that fuels pride and lust and greed and anger and resent and revenge and jealousy and hate and shame and fear and, yes, even denial.

The scriptures call it "the Spirit of Contention". It is a very real and thick darkness. I think the use of the word "spirit" is descriptive for a reason. Perhaps the phrase 'the Spirit of Contention, like a grease fire, is burning" amplifies just how engulfing and dangerous the white sludge of contention really is. And like the hot temperature of the meat, when we are hot with anger, resentment, jealousy or hate, we lose sight of the greasy fat because it is absorbed into our behavior. Not until we cool down and the Spirit of the Lord returns, could we ever realize just how much damaged is caused by contention.

Fat has no nutrients, it's flavor is deceiving, it clogs arteries, and has little redeeming qualities. Contention has no redeeming qualities. Like all oils, contention is a fuel that burns when the fire is stoked with contention. Like many oils, it can be a liquid, solid, or gas. I have often described this gas as being like a winter inversion: a fog that suffocates everything. And like all gasses, it is extremely flammable.

Anger will affect all of us. No one is immune from getting upset. But it is the unchecked anger, the inflamed rage and anger, fueled by contention, that will destroy us.

The secret is to separate the grease.

Draining the grease before it becomes a grease fire requires that we admit that it exists. And throwing liquid on the grease problem only makes it worse. The liquid of logic spreads the grease fire--it can never extinguish it. We can think we are right, but that thinking only exacerbates the problem.


Just as we should separate the sin from the sinner, we should separate the problem from the person and the issue from the individual.

Sometimes being right complicates the situation.

But does being right mean that it is ever right to punch or shove or hurt someone?

Does being right mean it is alright to mentally or emotionally abuse someone?

Just because you are right, is it right to yell?

Because you are right is it ever right to use the vilest of all words and swear?

If you are right, are you then right to defame, slander, or mock another person?

Does being right ever make jabs and insults alright?

The truth is, being right never makes it right to be hurtful, hateful, or contentious.

Retaliation is never reconciliation.

Whatever you choose to call the toxic substance, the only way that the radioactivity can be eliminated is when we recognize the fuel for what it is, and replace it with the only thing that can remove it.

The answer to the drama is also a substance. It fuels reconciliation and restitution. And when restitution doesn't seem possible, this fuel begins with sincere apologies, heartfelt forgiveness, loving kindness, honesty, mutual respect, and mostly love.

Without the fuel of love, there can be no clear or lasting remedy.

While our words will condemn us, the soft spoken loving words of a meek and contrite heart will do more to begin a process of healing, than anything else. 

It starts in the heart and it starts first within us. We can let go of the resentment. We can forgive. 

We can restore the feelings of love if we, first, eliminate the contention.