Ash Wednesday

As we enter this season of Lent, many of us are contemplating appropriate ways to observe the season. We begin on this Ash Wednesday by remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. No matter where or when we are born, or to whom, or what our lives hold, we all are human. We are born, and we die. In the space between, we act and react, and these actions and reactions are what make up a human life. What animates those actions and reactions? Your answer may depend on what you believe about this human life. Is this all there is, or is this life part of something bigger?

I believe that we come from God, and we return to God. And if that is true, then what St. Paul said it true, that nothing can separate us from the love of God.

But we live in a world where we can often feel separated from God.

I have come to love Lent because it is a yearly opportunity to remember who I am and whose I am, to re-member myself to God, the creative love animating the universe. "The world" seems to have a lot of expectations of our lives, based on when and where we were born, and to whom, and a whole lot of other things. But what does God expect?

Read the words of the prophet Isaiah, in the scripture appointed for today:

"Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?" (Isaiah 58:6-7)

These are God's hopes for how we will live, because God has a dream for us:

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in."

May the ashes on our foreheads remind us that wherever and whoever we are, we are dust. But the best kind of dust, the kind created and given life by God.