For 7 years the Church of the Good Shepherd has practiced a three day and night fire vigil from Sundown Thursday till Sunrise Easter Morning. People sign up for two hour shifts to tend the fire around the clock. This is not a usual practice in the Episcopal Church, it actually is inspired by Indigenous tradition, but it is in keeping with the activities surround the story of the Triduum,
the three days leading up to Easter. There was a fire on Thursday night outside the place where Jesus was kept, and Peter denied Jesus three times that night.And, there was a fire where the soldiers guarded the tomb where Jesus’s body was laid.

In Indigenous tradition, the fire symbolized ‘coming to center’ for discernment, healing, and ritual purification. The fire is seen as emerging out of the friction of the tensions of life and the coming together of ‘all our relations’ from the 7 directions of East North, West, South, Below, Above. and Center. ‘All our relations’ in Indigenous worldview included all of the creatures and features of God’s creation and the center for us at Good Shepherd is our most significant sibling,
Christ… And the Fire’s smoke gives a all five senses representation of the prayers and hearts’ desires of the people rising upward to Creator (God).

The community is invited to come sit with the Fire Keepers, to offer prayers either silently or spoken, and to hold vigil with us.