Keeper of the Flame

For more than three decades, two neighbor families—the Garners and Smiths—have sat together around backyard bonfi res. As the embers bank down from a roaring blaze, we talk and laugh freely. Sip a little wine and sometimes glimpse a few of life's infi nite angles. We're drawn to the stars with the wonder of searchers who hold something larger than ourselves in awe. And we instinctively pull back from a superheated pace and the bondage of time that drives our loud, brash world. Keeper of the Flame touches on the ritual and meaning of our fi res, the work we do and the play we use to refresh, the friendship and beauty that serve as the unbought grace of life, and many more subjects that have burned brightly during our fi rewatches. Since we've never pretended to have all the answers, this book also invokes the wisdom of more than 80 writers, poets and thinkers to lend insights into our physical and spiritual journeys.