Remember That You Are Dust (A Newspaper piece)

(in the interests of full disclosure, this borrows heavily from this and this that I wrote over a decade ago)

This year you may see people with some, shall we say interesting, facial decorations on Valentine’s Day. A black smudge in the shape of a cross. Or maybe someone will be inventive and it will be a black smudge in the shape of a heart.

This year Valentine’s Day, a holiday dedicated to expressions of love and affection is also Ash Wednesday, a much more sombre occasion.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent, a time where church tradition encourages us to reflect on our lives and our world, to reflect on how we have missed the mark in our attempts to be who God created us to be. In some churches the day is marked by a worship service where the forehead of attendees is marked with ashes along with the phrase “remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”. Ash Wednesday also calls us to remember that we are mortal, that we will one day die, which can help give us a sense of perspective.

As we approach Ash Wednesday this year I want to share a reflection I used at a meeting a decade ago:

Ashes. Pale, grey, nondescript. Ashes. That is how our Lenten journey begins. We take the remnants of last years triumphant palms and turn them from signs of joy into pale grey nondescript ashes.
As we look at the ashes we remember to confess those times we have slipped in our attempts to be the people God would have us be. To quote an Ash Wednesday hymn, we "mark our failure and our falling" as we rub the grey powder between our fingers. We remember and we recommit ourselves to try again.
As we look at the ashes we are reminded of the old words "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return". Some of the ashes in our life are signs of bitterness, signs of mortality and destruction. And so we remember this year our brothers and sisters in British Colombia and California, who have just lived through a record wildfire season. We remember all who have placed caskets and urns into the ground to the refrain of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust". Ashes mix with tears to become a pasty mess, ready to mark our lives.
And yet ashes are also a sign of hope. The ashes of the forest fire provide a rich bed for the new forest to start growing. The legendary phoenix is only able to be refreshed after the fire, then to rise again from the ashes. From the fire of destruction can come hope.
The world around us is full of ashes. The ashes of burnt out souls. The ashes of burned up dreams and hopes. The ashes of regret and repentance. But amidst all the ashes and fear and depression lies a promise. "From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring". The Lenten journey takes us to Jerusalem and destruction. But beyond that lies the hope of resurrection and new life.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. These words remind us of our mortality. They call us to remember that we are not the center of the universe. They call us to remember that there was before us and there will be after us, that none of us are indispensable.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. These words prepare us for what comes next. Only when we take seriously the reality of death can we experience fully the glory of resurrection. The Lenten journey takes us to Good Friday but the day after Lent ends is Easter Sunday. The graveside gathering is a time of sorrow but the word of hope we share is that the grave is not the end. Individuals may come and go but we share in a larger work, the whole of which we may never know. No matter what may come there is hope, and promise, and possibility.

This year I encourage all of us to look at what changes can or need to be made in our lives and in the corporate life of this community as we live into the Kingdom of God. What needs to die so that God’s Kingdom can live? It is said that only by passing through death that we have life. In fact we do that many times throughout our lives – we pass through the death of what was into the life of what will be.

This year on the holiday dedicated to love we pause to remember the God who is love. As the ashes are smeared on the forehead what death do you fear, what resurrection do you await?

ANd as an online bonus, some music:

And another