We Rise Again from Ashes

This post is going to serve as a forum for a bit of a rant that Ben and I were on yesterday. We got up bright and early (actually, more like dark and early, since the sun had not yet arisen) and hit up Ash Wednesday Mass at the parish down the road (not our usual house of worship). During the Mass, as is the general liturgical custom, songs appropriate to the liturgical season were sung. Two of these songs were the good ole' Glory and Praise standards "Ashes" and "Hosea". With little exception, I have sung these songs at Mass on nearly all Ash Wednesdays of my life and never really gave them a second thought--nice complements to the rest of the liturgy and we move on. But on this day, they caught my attention and it turns out (as we discussed after Mass) that both Ben and I have some basic theological and/or aesthetic issues with the words and melody. Here are the words to "Ashes", to jog your memory:


"We rise again from ashes / from the good we've failed to do / we rise again from ashes / to create ourselves anew / if all the world is ashes / then must our lives be true / an offering of ashes, an offering to You.

"We offer you our failures / we offer You attempts / the gifts not fully given / the dreams not fully dreamt/ give our stumblings direction / give our visions wider view / an offering of ashes / an offering to You."

There is a third verse that does not immediately come to mind...(note: I have typed all of the lyrics from memory, which is further proof that not an Ash Wednesday has gone by that I have not sung this song at Mass).

Comments: In verse 1, "to create ourselves anew" - hmmm, isn't God--specifically the Holy Spirit--the one who "renews the face of the earth"? If we were indeed able to create ourselves anew, we would not need salvation.

"If all the world is ashes" - IS all the world nothing but ashes? I mean, I can grant that everything is passing away and that God alone is everlasting (and our souls, of course), but there is an inherent goodness to this world that God created ("and God saw what he had created, and it was very good"). Of course the world is off-kilter because of sin, but it is not inherently evil. And the following line ("then must our lives be true") I don't even pretend to understand.

Verse 2 starts out well, speaking of failures and attempts and our lack of ability to fully give of ourselves to others. We offer to God our imperfections and ask for Him to make us holy. But the next words, "the dreams not fully dreamt" really baffles me. Maybe it's just the American in me, but when I think of "dreaming dreams," what comes to mind is more like "Oh, Phyllis and I have a dream to one day build a little log cabin in the Rockies and retire there". Surely, our failure to realize such dreams is not something to be ashamed of and to be penetential about, is it? I'm picturing John Denver in a powder blue leisure suit crooning out this verse. Next line is good: "give our stumblings direction" --okay, we stumble and we need God's help to stay on the right path, but then "Give our visions wider view"--again, John Denver and the log cabin retirement plans of Bob and Phyllis creep into my consciousness.

Come to think of it, in our post-Mass discussion, we concluded that it was more the words of "Ashes" that were problematic, and the melody of "Hosea" that bothered us. It just seemed slow and plodding (but it was "dark and early" as I mentioned, so maybe that had something to do with it) and not at all inspiring for the beginning of a great liturgical season.

I'm not saying that musical preferences cannot widely vary among the faithful, but we really found ourselves longing for "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" or "Take Up Your Cross the Savior Said"--something with a little more inspiration to march down this dry, desert road until the dawn of Easter morning.