Beauty for ashes

April 21 2024

Beauty for ashes…
What did it really mean?
Filly had heard this before in inspirational talks and yet it did not really make sense to her. That was before all the things unfolded this weekend. Now, suddenly she could see it and the phrase made sense.
But it had taken her the entire weekend to make that “connection” and see the beauty in spite of drama and understand how quickly beauty is able to replace “ashes”. She got out of her car and started walking.

Ashes could be anything she realized.
Ashes could be “losing money to a scam”, or “losing a relationship” because of lack of honest communication or “losing a game” because of facing a better opponent. In each case, the loss or the “ashes” were ultimately outweighed by the good that endured in spite of the “ashes”. All good endures, and as such, is where a person could see the “beauty”.

Filly thought the first event that had happened earlier in the weekend… She had made a call to a friend as she walked her normal route. The phone rang a few times and her friend slowly answered, sounding different.

“I am a victim of a scam and I lost all my life savings” her friend had said, haltingly.

Filly stopped walking and looked at her cell phone and then said, “you are not a victim”.

She learned that this had happened to her friend after responding to a scam Microsoft message four weeks earlier on the computer. This message included a phone number that the friend had called only to learn that “hackers” were supposedly “compromising” accounts in an investment firm (Morgan Stanley) and that these moneys needed to be transferred into a different account to “protect” them.

The friend should not have clicked on that “Microsoft” bubble as that one click allowed it to install a keystroke logger on the computer so that the scammer could see when her friend checked balances. The bubble had been the bait and there were no hackers other than the person on the phone who was not actually from Microsoft.

The friend had followed the instructions given by the man answering the Microsoft phone number (dishonestly as he was the scammer). He then forwarded the call through to someone who was supposedly at the department of treasury who was also a scammer, as well as someone pretending to be at Bank of America, a third part of the scam. They all had names and phone numbers that had since been disconnected.

The instructions from these bogus “representatives” of legit organizations, over a period of several weeks, were ultimately to purchase gold bars by transferring all the retirement money to a jewelry store where gold bars could be bought and then handed over to a “federal agent” at the treasury department for “safeguarding” but they were actually just stolen.

The “courier”, also part of the scam, picked up the gold from the home of her friend. The amount taken totaled almost a million dollars. Gold bar scam. New and originating in Maryland…then to Pennsylvania and moving south to NC.

Filly’s friends way of life had been taken, as the funds that enabled that lifestyle had been stolen. These were the “ashes” Filly thought, and yet, inexplicably, there was still beauty. Beauty in the way the family all stepped in to help. Beauty in the way that Filly’s friend had continuously demonstrated an innate faith in God, as well as a trust and willingness to help those who were believed to be legit government agents, even though they had been bogus.

Filly’s friend was not jaded, demented or defenseless. Those criminals who were acting against good to take a life savings were, she realized, only a shadow. Her friend would move through this dark place untouched. The shadow had no power. Not only that, before these evil doers even betrayed the friend and hijacked the funds, they were forgiven.

Before any grief over loss could set in, good had prevailed. There was beauty in the way that police and FBI provided help, working to identify the criminals and hopefully recover the funds. Beauty in the way that the local priest gave comfort and beauty in the way that the friend had not relied on the funds for living but had used the majority of those funds to help others (seminarians, mothers of babies who needed help, church and conservatives in the community). The trust and support of good was not wasted, and would not end and there was indeed beauty in those ashes.

Filly thought about how there was also beauty in the ashes for someone else she knew who had faced a different type of scam and had almost ended a marriage because of trusting a stranger in the promise of a better life. The similarity between the two scams, was that in both cases, what seemed to be a good thing was bad and what seemed to be a bad thing, was good.

In the money scam, “involving family” was portrayed as “bad” as it supposedly put the (bogus) “operation” to catch the “hackers” at risk. In reality, communicating openly with family about what was happening, would have prevented filly’s friend from losing the funds. “Do not speak”, was a mistake and a manipulation that kept “evil” holding the strings of the puppets.

In the same way, the belief that a stranger (over and above marriage) could supply all the good for someones life, so there was no need for family support or advice… also made strangers seem “good’ and family seem “bad”.
In fact, the stranger made it seem like family was against all the fun things would make a person “happy”. The stranger lied and pretended to be a better and more caring and trustworthy resource when that was, in fact, the opposite of what was truth.
And the help offered by the stranger ultimately was limited, finite, and somewhat self serving as well as immoral. This mistaken belief that relying on a stranger was good, almost cost a marriage and family but there was beauty for those ashes.

Beauty in how children and parents were not abandoned, beauty in how innocence was not punished, beauty in how abundance of good was not withheld and beauty in forgiveness.

A Marriage, filly thought, that manages to survive such emotional trauma, as well as individuals that survive such financial trauma as having their life savings taken unfairly, both display amazing beauty, resilience and purity that allows them to pass through dark places untouched, undamaged and uplifted.
Beauty for ashes.
That thought stayed with her the entire weekend and on the last day, kept coming to her as she walked around the rubber quarter mile track in Austin, waiting for the “bumblebee” soccer game to start. The kids were all five and six year olds and were excited to try to score a goal. Their warmup was their practice.
Practice and game day all happened together so busy families did not have to commute as much.
Filly loved how athletic the little guy was, that she had come to watch. His freckled face was wide with a smile as he saw his team huddle together with the coach. But this game was not going to be one of their better games. They would go down in flames… then of course there would be ashes… figuratively.
When the game started, they tried. Filly grinned as she watched one little guy making kung foo hand movements on the soccer field facing the wrong direction. Another little guy lay down every time he kicked and missed the ball, while a third little guy stared up at the clouds smiling, as if communicating with an invisible friend in the sky, completely unaware of the game going on around him. Little kids were so adorable Filly thought… laughing as the coach tried to give directions to his flagging team, switching out players to get water and yelling encouragement.

Some how the competition” understood the winning part of the game better and maneuvered the ball, scoring goals. Somehow that coach had managed to convey, in a finite amount of time, just the right thing to help the kids do slightly better. There was beauty in their innocence and joy, even though they beat Filly’s team. Not for long she thought. Not for long. Their hard work would eventually pay off also.
In the meantime, there was beauty in the little guys’ enjoyment of the snack after the game ended.
Foil crinkling packs of goldfish were handed out with cold plastic bottles of blue Gatorade. There was beauty in the breezy day and the perfect temperature and the green grass.

Beauty in the cheers of the parents for both sides of the field. All these things were the beauty replacing the ashes of a lost game.

If bad things are but a shadow, the way ashes make a shadow on the forehead of Catholics on ash Wednesday, these shadows could not do damage and had no reality in the face of beauty, any more than ashes on a face can cause hurt or make someone not beautiful. Filly understood that.

Her friend who lost money would be ok…not just ok but better off…restored by twice as much. The one who almost lost a relationship, was also restored by double had gained back family and self respect and had maintained innocence and joy.

The kids who lost the game were not crying but laughing and going through the parent cheer tunnel and eating goldfish. There was no bitterness in any of these. No need to retaliate… only the desire to keep doing better and grow and persevere. Beauty for ashes.
Filly walked back across the field kicking the abandoned soccer ball towards her little car to drive home. She thought of her randomly chosen quote for the day.
“hush, do not weep, for the day IS holy. And all the people went their way to eat and to drink and to share gifts of food and to celebrate because they had heard God’s words and understood them.

Beauty for ashes she thought, smiling.