Phoenix Fire

The clouds hung in low, mother-of-pearl rolls over the wet dark trees. For a breath the sun hung between the hills and the low weeping clouds, painting their undersides with the colors of dawn. Red and orange, bright as phoenix fire.

We rode out yesterday through a landscape dry and brittle as bone. The sun bright, its light hard edged and hot on our backs. The grass dry and parched, brown and sun-bleached. If I listened to the grass I would say it was the end of August.

The rain this morning brings with it birdsong, it softens the light and gives the word new breath. Everything old is new again, hope springs back from the dust of despair.

We prayed for a parishioner in the hospital and healing showered down like the rain outside, bright and cleansing, bringing with it hope and joy. The light of a new day, life remade for each of us. We start over each morning, new life, new hope, new chance. The word rises from the ashes of its old self in the fires of the phoenix.