At the age of 4, ben Yoseif met with a tragedy, which he said has since shaped his life. This is a story only his words can tell:

What I will relate is all from what I was told by my late Mother, of most blessed memory, Sybil Louise Hale.  I have no memory of anything after falling into the fire except lying as rigid as a board and in shock in the aftermath of this event.

It was one of my three older sisters' birthdays. My mother did not remember which sister. But on her 16th birthday, she had a roaring bonfire and a weiner roast party and had invited about two dozen of her teenage friends from her high school at Kirbyville, TX.

This I remember. I was almost five. The teens played a game, Red Rover. I was too small to play.  I stayed by the roaring bonfire, which had not yet burned down to coals so they could roast their weiners and marsh-mellows.  I played a game of my own, dancing around and around and around the fire -- which was about as hot as the sweat lodge fires used to heat grandfather stones -- and whooping and chanting. This I remember. But I either got dizzy or tripped and fell into the fire, face-first. I remember trying to lift myself out of the fire by my hands but the stones around the perimeter were hot to my palms and I kept falling back in. And I remember screaming. That's all.

The result was 3rd degree burns over all of my face and head, a septum in my nose that may have partially melted and a damaged eardrum. But miraculously, I had kept my eyes closed and suffered only minor vision loss and absolutely no damage to my lungs.

At first, my mother told me later, no one could hear my cries for help over the noise of the game of Red Rover in a cow pasture about 150 yards away from the bonfire.  Finally, though, someone heard my last cries and while everyone else was in shock, leapt two barbed-wire fences and rushed over to pull me out of the fire and put out the flames which had spread to my jacket covering my upper body.

All of the girls were crying and shrieking still in shock and this drew my mother to the front porch with a bowl of soft butter from our milk cow in one hand and a box of salt in the other. When Jimmy Delaney, the teen-aged boy who had pulled me out the fire turned my face toward her, my mother shrieked, "No, No, Nooooooooooooooooo," and dropped both the bowl of butter and the salt.  But one of my sisters caught the bowl and knew from a First Aid course she had taken to treat severe burns with unsalted butter. (Today cold water works better). The butter had not yet been salted, so she poured the entire bowl over my head and face.  It immediately cauterized 3rd degree burns and saved my life and saved me from extensive scarring.

But my face was badly, badly marred. My mother told me years later that I did not look human and she refused to look at me.  We did not have a car or a telephone, so my mother sent one of my other older sisters to a neighbor's to call a doctor in Jasper, the closest city with a hospital.  The doctor said it sounded like all that could have been done was done and that "if he is still alive in the morning, bring him into Jasper."

Mother left my older sisters to care for me -- my Dad was offshore -- and retreated to the back porch, which she spent on her knees and had the splinters the next morning to show for it. She told me she promised God everything she could think of if He would let me live without extensive scarring.

By morning, my face and head was one big scab with eyeballs and charred ears poking through. When the doc saw me, he was aghast and said it was a miracle that I had survived even with the quick thinking of my older sister.

It took about 14 years to heal and each summer and winter I was subject to wind and sun burns that often resulted in infections and more hospitalization.  I missed half of the first grade in the hospital and returned there in the third grade. But eventually, the scars that remained had mercifully traveled south under my chin and onto my neck and chest.

As a result of this fire I had to wear a smelly ointment called "foil" every day to grade school. It stunk. I had to sit by the window and endured the rejection of my classmates day in and day out.

But there was a positive side to this.  With so much alone time, I became a reader and a writer.

I made many poor choices out of the effects of the rejection, however, latching on to any friends or companions who would show the slightest interest. This has included three ex-wives for whom I proved "overly needy," but who had shown me much needed -- and appreciated affection -- for as long as it lasted. Ironically, all three of those relationships -- totaling 27 years -- ended with annulments from religious authorities, two from monsignors of the Roman Catholic Church and the most recent was never recognized by Orthodox interpretations of Halachah.

Today, I remain a socially needy person because of this fire but can now accept this and find it best to live alone.  The scars remain emotionally. Sometimes even in my mid-50s, I still have nightmares and wake up crying for my Mother.  But this suffering has helped me learn compassion and be able to show empathy to other social misfits, the down-and-outs, and anyone who is outcast or shunned, in a capacity I don't think would be possible otherwise.

There could be no better training to reach out to the House of Joseph in exile, especially in Native American circles, where fire and its purgings are most sacred and I feel the most at home.