For the record, the events referenced
in this post happened before any relevant ban on backyard burning.
I’ve been setting a lot of fires
lately. No, I haven’t finally snapped
and decided to burn it all down.
I had some boxes of old office
papers taking up space in my garage. There
was the off-chance that something in there had an old credit card number on it
so I couldn’t send it all to the landfill, but it was too much for our little
home paper shredder. I (with my country
tail) had the AWESOME idea of dumping the folders into a metal trash can and lighting
it all up all Hollywood
alleyway style.
In the movies when someone tosses
a lighter onto a pile of classified papers, the whole stack goes up in a column
of flames and a few minutes later all that remains is a pile of ashes. This
may come as a shock, but ---- Hollywood lied.
Paper burns quickly. Well, A
paper burns quickly. A folder stuffed
with 5 years of sign-in sheets does not.
After an hour spraying lighter fluid and stirring the folders I had a 1 inch layer of
ash covering 4 feet of smoky, ashy, and thoroughly un-burned office papers.
All day. That’s how long it took for fire to consume a
few boxes of files. All. Frickin’. Day. Two hours after sunset I gave up. I sprayed the contents of the trash can with
water from the hose. Set the metal lid
in place, took a looong shower and went to bed.
That was a Monday.
Friday, 4 days later I thought, “What
the crap do I do with a trashcan full of ashes?” I could have bagged it all up and put it in
the dumpster; but then I thought, “Ashes.
Carbon. Biodegraded. The soil will absorb it,” so I turned the
trash can over at the edge of the woods behind my house.
A few minutes later, I saw smoke,
FRESH smoke, coming out of the woods at the edge of my yard. I got the hose and the shovel and carefully
doused the tiny new fire I’d started. And THAT was when I began reflecting on the
difference between ASHES and EMBERS.
Ashes and embers are both the
remains of a fire, and they look the same: grayed black, blackened gray,
charred, powdered, withered, empty, fit for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden
underfoot. That’s what ashes are, but
when the wind blows, you realize that embers are something different.
A few minutes in the spring
breeze and some of the dead-looking remains of my trash fire started glowing. Some of the ashen pieces turned fire red. They weren’t ashes. They were EMBERS.
Embers are the ashes that refused
to die. they were just waiting for a
gust of oxygen on the breeze to ignite. And they
did not ignite gradually. From cold and seemingly
dead, at the touch of wind, the embers changed suddenly into red hot
coals. And the coals turned the pile of
ashes into a fire.
WE all go through the fire. People, systems, circumstances, sometimes
just the ubiquitous entropy of a fallen world pile on intending to consume you,
to make you into a withered, empty, used up nothing, to throw you down and trod
you underfoot. Ashes.
The weekend after Jesus was crucified,
the disciples were all ashes: scattered, withered, defeated. By Sunday afternoon they were already blowing
in the wind, scattering to Emaus and wherever.
But when they encountered Jesus risen from the dead, and He
breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), they
were re-ignited. The light in them shone
again and it wasn’t long before there
appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them
(Acts 2: 3).
You don’t get to decide if or
when you go through the fire, but you do get to choose what happens when the smoke
clears. You can accept the imposed role and
lie in the dust until you’re swept away ---- like ashes.
Or, you can inhale the breath of
life and let your little light glow fire red.
You can receive the Holy Spirit and ignite. With the Holy Spirit dwelling in you like
fire shut up in your bones, you can rise from the ashes.
We all go through the fires of
life, but those fires don’t have the last word. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not
crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed—always carrying about in the body the dying of
the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body
(2 Corinthians 4: 8-10).
If you have Jesus you will get
burned, but you will not be ashes. With
Jesus, you are ---- an EMBER.
So, relax. Pray.
Feel the breath of God moving over you and in you. Breathe.
Now get up out of those ashes and go set the world on fire.
--Anderson T. Graves
II is a writer, community organizer and consultant for
education, ministry, and rural leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is
pastor of Bailey
Tabernacle CME Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He writes the popular
blog: A Word to the Wise at
www.andersontgraves.blogspot.com
Friend me at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
Follow me on twitter @AndersonTGraves
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