making beautiful things out of the dust

Gungor's song 'Beautiful Things' is a wonderful modern anthem for Ash Wednesday.  For it is possible to regard this key date in the Christian calendar as a gloomy day, overly obsessed with sin. death, and other aspects of human finitude.  It is certainly a time for facing up to ourselves and our world, our limitations, failings and lack of ultimate control.  Yet this should only be in order to be re-charged with faith, hope and love, through the grace of God.  For Ash Wednesday is about renewing our participation in God's love in solidarity with others.  In the midst of our personal and wider struggles, it is a message not to despair but to take fresh heart.   As Gungor put it:
All this pain
I wonder if I'll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change, at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found?
Could a garden come out from this ground, at all?
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us
All around,
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found, in you...

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