Fires and tongues

Unsurprisingly the "apocalyptic" wildfires in Los Angeles have dominated our television news over the last few days. As well as being terrifying, they are of course very televisual. On Sunday we heard Emma Vardy reporting from the Golden Globes ceremony in Hollywood for the BBC; on Tuesday there she was in front of raging infernoes ripping through the houses of posh areas of the city. Quite a contrast! By now several stars of the screen have seen their mansions and villas go up in smoke.

Before

After

 

 

 

Apocalyptic is the adjective from the noun apocalypse, derived from the Greek word ἀποκάλυψις. We now commonly regard it as meaning catastrophic, even world-ending. Its original meaning is more unveiling, revealing or disclosing. Which is true of the wildfires as well as their being disastrous. And what do they reveal?

The news this morning informed us that a man had been arrested on suspicion of starting one later fire, though whether arson was involved in others is not known. I imagine the fire authorities have been too busy trying to save human life and extinguish the blazes to devote much time to forensic examination of the causes. But it doesn't take much to start a wildfire, especially if the conditions are favourable. As the good Book tells us: "So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell." 

Today I suspect St James might have qualified "the tongue" by adding "the internet", and in particular social media. "Look at the damage online gossip can do," he might have said. It's so easy, isn't it, to make a quick comment on your favourite social medium or to react thoughtlessly to an

unverified story, which has become all the more easy now with Mark Zuckerberg's removal of fact-checking from Facebook following Elon Musk's example on X (formerly Twitter). "And," St James might say, "look at the devastation an odd word, like an odd spark can cause."

Whether you're a billionaire calling a lifelong champion of abused women a "rape genocide apologist" or a disgruntled cleric without substantial evidence accusing a consistent advocate and initiator of safeguarding the vulnerable of "allowing abuse to continue", the damage caused can spread far and wide and deep. Control your tongue and your keyboard fingers!