One of the things my wife and I love about our house in South Bend is that we have a fireplace. It's not the largest fireplace around, but it meets our needs on cold nights like tonight. We both enjoy the ambiance the dancing flames create and, hey, it can be a bit romantic.
Part of the process of being able to have nightly fires is to shovel out the ashes in the fireplace every few days. While retaining some ash provides a bed for the new ashes to fall into, too much ash can choke out a fire. So, this afternoon I did my duty and shoveled ash.
It amazes me how large logs consumed by fire turn into a mere handful of ash. What was once part of a mighty Douglas Fire or Hemlock, now is this light and fluffy substance. What was once a tree that withstood gale force winds, now can be scattered to and fro by a small puff of wind or breath.
In this same vein, the ashes of people are no different. Whether one was a mighty captain of industry, a star athlete or a poor beggar, the ashes of deceased bodies look nothing like the people once alive. In fact, burn most any substance and what we're left with is ash.
Some may view this similarity as disheartening; it makes me feel more at peace. It informs me that, while our forms may be different in life, we each end up in roughly the same place...Dust to dust and ashes to ashes.
Part of the process of being able to have nightly fires is to shovel out the ashes in the fireplace every few days. While retaining some ash provides a bed for the new ashes to fall into, too much ash can choke out a fire. So, this afternoon I did my duty and shoveled ash.
It amazes me how large logs consumed by fire turn into a mere handful of ash. What was once part of a mighty Douglas Fire or Hemlock, now is this light and fluffy substance. What was once a tree that withstood gale force winds, now can be scattered to and fro by a small puff of wind or breath.
In this same vein, the ashes of people are no different. Whether one was a mighty captain of industry, a star athlete or a poor beggar, the ashes of deceased bodies look nothing like the people once alive. In fact, burn most any substance and what we're left with is ash.
Some may view this similarity as disheartening; it makes me feel more at peace. It informs me that, while our forms may be different in life, we each end up in roughly the same place...Dust to dust and ashes to ashes.
I remarked on the same thing a couple months ago at crew quarters for my last job. We had bonfires all the time, especially for the last few nights of the season, where we burned huge quantities of wood. But there was hardly any ash; the firepit was full, but the fires we'd built had been several feet across. It's amazing: trees are literally made of water, light and air.
ReplyDeleteBut anyways, yeah. It helps put things in perspective, thinking of death. "the great equalizer" and all that. Or as Blue's Traveler sang: "it won't mean a thing in 100 years..."