This morning as I walked through the line to receive ashes marking my forehead, I was struck suddenly (perhaps, honestly, for the first time) with the full weight of those ashes. And in the realization of that weight, I felt tears crowd into the corners of my eyes, threatening to spill over into the room.
Today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. As Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem in our Gospel texts, we set our hearts toward fasting and repentance during this season. As the cold of winter seeps into our bones and the world feels enveloped in darkness and dampness, we are reminded most pointedly of our own mortality. Today, especially, we remember. Ashes are smeared onto our foreheads, and we are reminded that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
I've been receiving ashes since I was little. I grew up in a church that observed Ash Wednesday. Even in college, I searched out the yearly opportunity to have ashes spread on my forehead. I knew there was something important taking place, but I've never really had the emotional connection to the act. It was always more of an intellectual exercise, reminding myself of my own mortality. But this morning, that all changed.
As we lined up, one behind another behind another, I found myself behind our eldest member of OSH. That's not uncommon. I almost always try to let her go ahead of me in lines as a sign of respect for her. She's one of the treasured people I look up to in faith and community, and I like the image of following in her footsteps. But today, when this person whom I love and respect and admire was told that even she was dust and would return to dust, I almost stopped in my tracks. I watched with wide eyes as ashes were spread on her forehead and she accepted with grace and dignity the reality of both life and death held within her.
I stepped forward after her, and received my own ashes as the youngest in our community. For the first time, I realized what a heavy weight that is. As I made my way back to my seat and eventually sat down, my eyes started to well up. I watched as each of my sisters received ashes on their heads and were told they were dust. I realized that these women, this family of mine, would die. I realized that I would likely watch most, if not all, of them pass from one glory to the next before it is my time to do the same. I felt the heaviness of mortality, and for a few moments death felt like it loomed so large.
That's when it occurred to me that the mark of ashes is made in the shape of a cross. I've never once questioned that sign. And yet today, I was left speechless with the implication. The cross changes things. Christ's assumption of dust, Jesus' own fleshly body, was given over to death just like my own body and the bodies of my sisters will be. But through the cross, even that dust is redeemed. Dust is made into a new creation.
I took great comfort in knowing that Death is not the end of the story. Yes, my sisters and I are dust. And we will each return to the dust from which we were made. And yet, the Holy One can create so much newness from dust. In this Lenten void of "alleluia's," I'll still hold on to hope.
Comments