Lent: Rise

There's a story they used to tell about a bird with an unfortunate habit of bursting into flame. They called it the phoenix.

I've burnt myself before, with a match. I was trying to light a candle, but it took too long and the flame reached the part of the match where my fingers were, and you know the drill.

A different time I pulled a metal sheet from the oven carelessly and was left with a blister on my finger that ached and made it a challenge to hold things.

Other times I've burned in slow motion as my brother and I horsed around on  a rug, and the friction of being dragged across the floor left a brush burn across my back.

The worst came when I burnt myself all over under the sun during a family vacation at the beach. Arms, legs, feet, back all. It was agony to touch or be touched, and that night I woke in a feverish delirium with no idea where I was. (I was lucky. The next day I began to peel, which I did, vigorously.)

It didn't matter how I burned, or where. It was awful.

For the phoenix, the experience was far worse and far more all-encompassing. Its temperature would spike and it would begin to cook in its heat. Imagine the pain as the process got under way. Its  ears would fill with a sizzling noise as its body fat began to melt, its flesh would come loose from its bones. Pain and terror would overthrow executive function, then flames would appear, searing the flesh as feathers burned away amid an acrid smell as the dying creature would emit one final, terrified squawk.

Then, wonder of wonders, from its own ashes, the phoenix would rise, renewed and filled with vigor.

And to think I have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning after a full night's sleep.

A wise man once said "Life is pain. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to sell you something," and it's true. There are a thousand injustices that most of us are too fortunate to need to worry about, and yet they happen. The day may be filled with a thousand casual cruelties, and the lacerating indifference of friends and strangers alike.

Know them for what they are. Face them on behalf of others so they don't have to. And when they beat you and say "Stay down," there's only thing to do.

Rise.

In so doing, you will upend the world.