... from the ashes

In our hallway is a sculpture carved from a wooden beam of the original chapel, still bearing burn marks from the Manchester Blitz. This item, by Alan Brough, is entitled “Rebirth,” and from this shattered wood comes an object of beauty.

This is not unusual; it is common,even mundane. Every spring there are flowers blossoming. Every day there is waste recycled into objects of use. Every moment there is an act of forgiveness. All is rebirth. We look ahead, not disparaged by the realities of the moment, but enraptured by the possible.

Though the act of devastation takes but a moment, and building up far longer, we look to be the flower, whose birth is contingent on the breaking of its seed. And from the earth, Manchester rises.