April 20, 2014

 

The sun has risen on another Easter Sunday…Hallelujah!

 

The word for this week is ASHES. Ashes are the remains, the traces of what was once substance. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, are words we often hear at funerals. We also refer to dreams and plans going up in smoke, nothing remaining, only the Ashes. It sounds so final… so over and without hope.

When my oldest son was about two he loved to scoot around on his tyke-bike. Those little fat legs and bare feet would push him through the bumpy terrain of our back yard and he would belly-laugh with joy. On one occasion there was a mound of Ashes remaining in the yard after we had burned some leaves the day before. You can guess the rest of the story, he started to plow through the Ashes and the screeches began. The bottoms of his feet were burned and blistered, a painful lesson to everyone. There were still embers glowing hot under those Ashes.

Wildfires, while rapidly destroying acres of forest, are nature’s way of cleaning house and making room for the new. Controlled burns clear the way for growth and stimulate germination.   The heat of the fire will cause certain pods to open and disperse their seedlings; under the Ashes lays preparation for a new beginning; new life.

Beneath the soft, padded darkness of the Ashes, dreams and plans that we once thought extinguished may be taking on a new form; Ashes are instilled with hope and infused with faith. Just a slight breeze, a whisper, a prayer can stir those Ashes, rekindling the flame, and reigniting the spark of the glowing embers.

 

“The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune’s spite; revive from ashes and rise.” Miquel de Cervantes Saavedra

 

With love,

Bonnie