Ashes

There are not too many Lenten songs that I resonate with, but Ashes by Tom Conry is one of the few that I absolutely love.

We rise again from ashes, from the good we've failed to do.
We rise again from ashes, to create ourselves anew.
If all our world is ashes, then must our lives be true,
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

We offer you our failures, we offer you attempts.
The gifts not fully given; the dreams not fully dreampt.
Give our stumblings direction; give our vision wider view,
an offering of ashes, an offering to you.

There have been years that these verses have just reduced me to tears; they have been so meaningful. Who among us doesn't know what it feels like to have their world reduced to ashes?
I think immediately of those pictures of people standing at the site of their homes, reduced to ashes by a fire or rubble by a tornado. Truly, everything seems to be lost. Truly, one can just stumble into the future, in shock from what one has just experienced. No one looses everything and immediately gets up and walks clearminded into the future. When you feel like you have lost everything, it takes time to recover.

Yet, those pictures also show illustrate determination -- and the way we cling all the more to what we do have -- the people who are most precious, who have survived the trauma with us.
Whether ashes are a reality or a metaphor for the way I feel, I am consoled by those I love, or those who remain with me -- or in the worst, by my faith that God is holding me in the midst of my suffering and God will not let go. -- And I rise, and re-create myself; I rise and stumble forward, hoping that I will find a direction sooner or later.

I believe the ashes are only the seedbed for new life -- like the legendary phoenix, I too will rise.