Some schools have great mottos.  Yale’s “Lux et Veritas” and Harvard’s “Veritas” spring to mind.  What could be better than Truth and Light?  My high school’s motto, Labore et Virtue, was equally impressive.  The University of Chicago, my alma mater, has a clunkier one:  “Crescat Scientia Vita Excolatur” which trippingly translates into “Let knowledge grow from more to more, and so be human life enriched.”   This earthbound line is however usually accompanied by a picture of a phoenix, the legendary bird which rises from the ashes of its own immolation.

Themes of birth-death-rebirth are not uncommon in literature and religion, naturally because they are tremendously reassuring.  When we find ourselves in the ashes – in the nadir of the cycle – it inspires hope to think that we’ll be rising glorious, like the phoenix.

We attempt to identify and define cycles all the time – it’s the basis of what many of us do – from the canyons of Wall Street and halls of science to the temples of religion.

The challenge of course is knowing where we are in the cycle, and how long it is.  When Jesus died for example, I don’t think the Disciples knew it would be only three days until he would rise from the dead.  Imagine the despair!  Human nature compels us to look for good things to follow bad, and as I’ve said here before, it’s this hope that inspires faith.

So what has this to do with us?  Are we in the ashes, or is the Phoenix about to take wing?

As you know from reading these pages, I struggle with staying positive in the face of such monumental and unremitting challenges.  The catastrophic changes brought about by Mary Elizabeth’s strokes continue to impact our daily lives, and we’re still trying to figure out how to “be” as we move forward.

We hope of course that our phoenix is rising and that the lovely weekend we had in Andover– along with Mary Elizabeth’s swimming – mark the beginning of a new cycle.  (As far as I’m concerned her minor accident on Sunday is an outlier!)

So we hope and pray that soon we’ll glimpse the brilliant vermillion of a phoenix feather behind the cold ashes and dead coals of despair.

I’ll keep you posted!