Burning Down

The other day I was listening to the podcast The Next Right Thing. It was the episode titled Reflection as Activism. 

Emily P. Freeman said something that made me stop what I was doing and write it down, 

"For beauty to come from ashes, something has to burn."

She went on to say that she daily asks Jesus, 

"What in me needs burning down today?"

Think about that.

The wonderful, 

selfless, 

humble, 

genuinous 

of that question.

And the willingness to not just listen to the gentle nudge in your spirit, but learn from and respond.

I mean HOLY COW.

The world would be somewhere completely different if people actually did this.

It would burn down the silliness of me versus the greater good. 

And the greater good would bloom beautiful.

It would burn down the anxieties that keep conspiracies alive. 

And truth would grow tall and strong.

It would burn down bias and discrimination and all the fogged up ways we think we see things and each other. 

And love, unconditional love, would grow out of that clarity.

It would burn down defensiveness and pride and all the stubborn things that keep us from learning and growing and sharing. 

And true intelligence, the emotional, spiritual, grace-filled kind, would emerge.

Imagine that.

God did. 

It was His plan from the beginning.

To burn all the "self" right out of us so that He could have room inside to get some actual work done.

Are we going to let Him do it?

If we merge mercy with might,

and might with right, 

then love becomes our legacy.

Amanda Gorman