Thursday, February 23, 2023

AN ASH WEDNESDAY STORY

I believe it was Ash Wednesday, 1983. 

I was living and teaching in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, and was living through a particularly challenging time. 

So Ash Wednesday, that year, had a more than normal personal meaning to me. 

In those days I used to ride my bike to and from my job at a local Catholic high school, about a 7 mile ride each way. 

That afternoon, which was particularly hot, and which was in what we call the "dry season" in the tropics, I saw smoke rising in the direction towards which I was pedaling home. 

As I came down the hill which sloped toward the beach near my home, I saw that the entire area around the place where I and a friend lived had been burnt black. 

There was about a hundred yards between the paved road and my home that was a dirt road. 

I slowly pedaled down the dirt road while the smoke rose from the burnt black tangan-tangan "fields" on both sides. 

It was hot, smoky, and dead. As close to a reminder of Hell as I wanted to get. 

Today, my former home is still pretty much surrounded by Tangan-Tangan fields. And every time I visit I remember that Ash Wednesday, when, like my life at that point, everything around me had been burned to a smoking ruin. 


However, thank you Jesus, He raised me from both the ashes on my forehead and the ashes surrounding my life and home. 

It was a good lesson as there would be more fields of ashes to navigate as I grew older...as we all do. 

Keep the faith.

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