Alternative titles of this article would be, “The blessing in what burns us and turns us to ash,” and “Turning what broke you into the best thing that ever happened”.
Here’s a Robert Bly quote to whet the appetite:
“Ashes present a great diminishment away from the living tree with its huge crown and its abundant shade. The recognition of this diminishment is a proper experience for men who are over thirty. If the man doesn’t experience that diminishment sharply, he will retain his inflation, and continue to identify himself with all in him that can fly: his sexual drive, his mind, his refusal to commit himself, his addiction, his transcendence, his coolness. The coolness of some American men means that they have skipped ashes.”
― Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book about Men
None of us handle loss well, and it doesn’t matter whether we believe in God or not, or stoicism, or anything else. In grief, we all go down. We either go down, and allow ourselves to be subjected to its ashes, or we refuse to even go down there, and shame is added to shame, and ultimately, it’s to anarchy that we arrive.
Ashes are the colossal opportunity of shame discovery and recovery.
Or, ashes herald such a despicable reminder of the work we’ve always refused to do, because, let’s face it, shame work completely undoes all our fallacious layers of a self-hood of what Bly calls the golden-haired boy or girl, woman or man. The narcissist who cannot face a thing.
Robert Bly’s, Iron John, is a book that has impacted me the most. It was such a sharp reminder of what I needed way back in 2012 as I finished my counselling studies. I’d done my ashes work, but I couldn’t connect with others about it. I couldn’t access my ashes with others.
From the moment I imbibed the book over the process of a month, I knew what God wanted me to do — enter into the brokenness of men. As much as any would allow.
I noticed since that time that some men will go deep, and some won’t. But it’s not simply about going ‘deep’, as much as it’s about going deep in the very covert places of shame that dwell within us all.
We really have nothing to fear other than fear itself — and I know that that can threaten; it can make us feel disarmed and disabled.
Humanity stands at the precipice of the healing for humility when he or she enters into the pain of facing their shame. If only they knew it’s an ever-present opportunity for every human. Only those who dare, win.
When Bly talks about “diminishment” he really talks about what Jesus suffered willingly. Notice that those who cannot and will not go there — into the diminishment represented by Philippians 2:5-11 — cannot ever go there. But truth be told, life REQUIRES us to go there at times, and the simplest reason is we need to hold and contain ourselves and others.
Only those who have sat in their ashes for a while can put others first on a consistent basis.
Humility is not thinking of ourselves less, it’s valuing others above ourselves as a sign that we’re safe in ourselves. When we don’t need attention, our focus turns to a curious and loving interest in others — it’s an interest and attention that always has the other person’s benefit at the forefront, with no loss to the self.
The person who hasn’t sat in their ashes — they refused — has been scared witless about the impending diminishment. The irony is those that recover admit they were there, low enough to acknowledge that they had felt completely abandoned.
But not even the most cataclysmic abandonment is a problem for those who have ashes. Indeed, the opposite applies. For those who wept loudest, ashes were a dream come true.
Those who cannot admit it, could not go there. They could not enter the journey of their lifetime, a lifesaving, salvation journey — a quest many Christians have always shirked. It was easier to keep faking it. But a cosmic opportunity was missed!
The narcissist pretends to have abilities that would only be his if he sat in ashes for a time. The tragedy is it’s not just him that misses out on him being true and raw with himself — everyone else misses out too, and everyone else must tiptoe around the place so as to not upset him.
One thing we must be on the lookout for these days: those people who feign their ashes and pretend they’re capably vulnerable — mainly because ashes have become cool, trendy, hip.
The red flag is this: ashes are never cool, but they are necessary, and someone can get terribly close to ashes and still end up a narcissist.
It’s the impact on other people’s lives that’s the true test.
If it’s ashes, relationships are beautiful, safe, a complete blessing. If it’s anarchy we know the ashes were cast aside.
Photo by Anders Jildén on Unsplash
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