One day last year as I was walking down the beach with
my grand daughters, we came upon these ashes.
As we peered closer we noticed what they were.
A Hymnal that had been burned, possibly several.
We wondered how anyone could choose to burn a hymnal
with so many other choices out there, in place of firewood.
Books are such a part of me, of us, of our family.
The idea of burning them had never occurred before.
When we owned a bookstore in Illinois we sometimes paid
ourselves with books. As we later went through them, we
realized that many of them we never looked at, so we
donated boxes and boxes of them to the area Thrift Store.
The ones we used over and over held a place in our hearts
and would never leave.
Books have always been such a big part of who we are.
I look upon the shelves and say to myself, “This is me!”
I think when people look at these shelves, they understand who we are. Like the pictures on the wall, they tell the world what is important to us.
Today, as we looked around the house to see what
we could once again take to the Thrift Store,
something had changed.
After all these years of these books saying,
“Here I am”, they said, “Here is my past”.
Oh, that hurt!
My past?!?
After thinking on this for a long bit, I think I understand.
These books, full of words I have trusted, loved and believed,
are not me.
They never have been and never will be me.
I am an everchanging being, and as such, these words and
pictures help me decide who I am becoming. Who we are becoming.
I have no need to burn these books to ashes,
for I shall always buy more of these things I love.
But now,
in this moment in time,
I am free of these material things
that once held my heartstrings.
Safety in the Fall 