Cinderella

Cinderella slept in the ashes and she is named for those cinders. The world is now rife with ashes … war, deteriorating environment, plague, the general distemper among us. Like Cinderella, I find myself brought low … into the ashes and the nether regions of hearth and heart. This is katabasis. Webster’s defines katabasis as “Literally, going down … a retreat … the downward motion of air.”* I have made my descent into the ashes of this Lent. There is little light, no foreseeable resolution or return, and no glass slippers to be found. Yet I carry on, and my trust remains in God.

*Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1937