From time to time, it appears in my social media feeds, as a hashtag or an all-caps cry:

BURN IT ALL DOWN.

It’s hyperbole, of course. A tongue-in-cheek, exasperated way of expressing frustration and exhaustion with something that’s just not working. A toxic work environment? Burn it all down. Laundry overtaking your house? Burn it all down. A world where the place you’re born determines whether you’re pampered or persecuted? Burn it all down.

No one I have ever known who used this war-cry is actually an arsonist. But I get the impulse. There is so much brokenness in the world. It’s tempting to want a reset. Burn it all down, all this hatred, all this bigotry, all this muck we seem to be trapped in, and start afresh.

Today is Ash Wednesday. Tonight, it will be my great gift and privilege to mark my beloveds with the sign of the cross, reminding them that they are dust and to dust they will return. But we don’t use dust in our worship. We use ashes.

Something was burned down to make those ashes. Probably palm branches, although since I didn’t burn them myself I can’t be sure. But what was once raspy, hard or prickly is now soft. Even while I talk about death, there is something comforting about the feel of the ashes. They are soft. Soothing, even.

The ashes remind us of sorrow, and yes, of death. But they also remind us of transformation. That God can take something painful, something hard and sharp and unyielding, whether that’s logs in the fireplace or cruelty in our communities, and burn it down into something soft and pliable.

Have you ever sat by a fire until it is just ash and embers? There’s a peace in that moment. In the quiet, in the ending, in the transformation. In the softness of it all, late at night, when only the warm glow of embers remain.

We use the phrase “it all turned to ashes” as if it were a bad thing. But I wonder sometimes what could benefit from being burned down a bit. What in my heart, what in my life, what in my world needs to feel the loving heat of God, until it is soft and quiet again?

I look around me and I see the sharp edges of broken hearts, wounding my friends. I see the sharp edges of broken dreams, turning to jealousy and despair. I see the sharp edges of broken relationships, encouraging prejudice and cruelty. I see the sharp edges of broken trust, slicing through our world as war and violence.

So tonight, I will dip my finger in the ashes, soft and dry, and this will be my prayer:

If it needs it, Lord, God
burn it all down.

Amen.