Albert Borgmann has written extensively on what he termed the device paradigm. He contrasts this to his understanding of focal things. If you are cold and you walk to the thermostat to turn up the heat, you are employing a device. A device, as device, does not connect you to your world. It does not bring coherence to an increasingly fragmented way of living and it does not allow you to provide care for others.
A wood stove affords such opportunities. As my father used to say when I was younger, ‘If you chop wood for the fire, you warm yourself twice.’ Stoking a fire well takes skill. You have to pay attention to what you are doing. It requires preparation and an engagement that transforms you as well as your world. Tending a fire is an act of caring for yourself and others.
The word ‘focal’ recalls its Latin root, the hearth. The hearth was the focal point of the home, its heart. It provided warmth. Food was cooked here. Light was provided for evening tasks as well. While household gods were superseded by knick-nacks and family photos, the mantel of a fireplace still maintained something of the sense of an altar. There was a place for the sacred.
Focal practices guard focal things. I still remember how my father taught me to light a fire. There is a process, a priority of actions. Each step leads the practitioner further down the path towards an excellence. In many cultures, the maintaining of the embers and their transfer from one location to another was a real symbol of the flame of life. Carelessness might forfeit the means of lighting a new fire. This could spell disaster to a person, family or community.
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