Ashes and Dust

I had planned on writing something about how I went to enroll in a "Comparative Religions" class at the Illinois Valley Community College. It was quite an experience. But it will have to wait. Since then, Ash Wednesday happened.

Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the season of Lent, which is a season of repentance. Ash Wednesday itself is a reminder of our morality. During the "Imposition of the Ashes" portion of the service, everyone lines up and ashes are used to trace the sign of the cross on the brow with the words, "Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

It's an intimate moment, the tracing of the ashes. There is the touch. There is the closeness. Some keep their eyes open. Some close them. For a moment in time, through both touch and gaze, I participate with them in their lifetimes of hopes and fears, regrets and dreams. I will never understand how that all works, but somehow, in that special moment, I share with them the meaning of their lives. As do they share in mine.

As a young ladd, myself, I am more apt to think in terms of young-adult issues and spirituality. I tend to think of such things as "what must I do to be a symbol of abundant life in this community." But being the pastoral figure in this congregation, which has been said to have an average age of 85, has taken me to new levels. Not only am I called to serve as a symbol of life and their divinization, but also a symbol of death and their morality. Their lives have made me see things differently.

"Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

That is what I said.
That is what was said to me.
I remember.
I remember the moment as I sit here with ashes on my brow.
I am mortal.
I am aware of my mortality.
And I am somehow more alive than I was three hours ago.