Ash to Ash
Psalm 51
Ash Wednesday.
The day after.
A lot of folks do remarkably well with the day before. Mardis Gras we can do. We can overindulge with the best of them. Why, yes, I will eat the WHOLE thing, thank you.
But the day after? The day marked with a smudge of ash? The day to remember how finite we actually are? How fleeting most everything we experience really is? That we do not do so well.
There is a power to this day that we need not avoid. It brings an invitation to reconsider and recalibrate who and what we are.
We are dust, and to dust, we shall return.
We are made of the same stuff all that makes all that is. With poetic beauty, but also scientific truth, we are stardust. The elements that make our flesh and blood are found throughout the cosmos, pumped into space by the stars themselves. We indeed fell from heaven--in all that such a statement implies.
We are the crown of creation (Ps. 8), but we are also fallen--prone to mistakes and missteps that carry heavy consequences. We assert ourselves when we should defer to someone else. We stand idly by when we should intervene. We speak before we think through what it is we are saying. We center only on our own being when we should be considering the needs of our community. We have wondrous imaginations and creative ability that we use only to feed our basest desires (sex as entertainment, profanity as comedy, etc.). We fool ourselves into believing our causes, our wants, and our pains are the only such in the whole world. We kid ourselves that someone else is to blame for our own problems. Because we are stardust, we believe we have privilege over all else that exists.
We are dust, and to dust, we shall return.
Psalm 51 calls us to see where we need to be.
It is a hard psalm to read, let alone sit with in contemplation. We do not want to hear about bones God crushes. We do not want to consider being sinful from the womb. We do not want to wallow in self-denigration.
Just remember that this is really not the point of the psalm. The psalm is a confession. Yes, it tackles our sin full on and head on. But it does so because it confesses that we are not what we puff ourselves up into being. At core, we are actually the same frightened child who awoke in the middle of the night terrified by a bad dream, wanting nothing more than the physical presence of a protecting parent right by our side.
If we take the ashes this day upon on brow, we claim that child.
If our recent history over the last few months in America revealed nothing, it revealed our feeling of helplessness in a world flown beyond our control. Some voted because they saw a person able to regain control of this crazy world. Some did not vote for exactly the same reason because they did not trust the offered control. The stunning reformation of the world by technology that eliminates so many things human beings used to do, that instantaneously brings literally everything in the world into our laps, and that, ironically, leaves us less able to intimately bond with anyone frightens us. At a loss, we cry for help, praying there is someone there who will wrap themselves around us to protect us.
The ashes indicate a good choice.
God is present. God is able. God is love.
There is that abiding surety we hunger for. There is that lasting embrace that makes us feel so very sheltered. There is the certain hope that dawn comes.
God hears us. God mends us. God helps us.
The ashes are our welcome of all that God offers.
Peace be with you.
Ash Wednesday.
The day after.
A lot of folks do remarkably well with the day before. Mardis Gras we can do. We can overindulge with the best of them. Why, yes, I will eat the WHOLE thing, thank you.
But the day after? The day marked with a smudge of ash? The day to remember how finite we actually are? How fleeting most everything we experience really is? That we do not do so well.
There is a power to this day that we need not avoid. It brings an invitation to reconsider and recalibrate who and what we are.
We are dust, and to dust, we shall return.
We are made of the same stuff all that makes all that is. With poetic beauty, but also scientific truth, we are stardust. The elements that make our flesh and blood are found throughout the cosmos, pumped into space by the stars themselves. We indeed fell from heaven--in all that such a statement implies.
We are the crown of creation (Ps. 8), but we are also fallen--prone to mistakes and missteps that carry heavy consequences. We assert ourselves when we should defer to someone else. We stand idly by when we should intervene. We speak before we think through what it is we are saying. We center only on our own being when we should be considering the needs of our community. We have wondrous imaginations and creative ability that we use only to feed our basest desires (sex as entertainment, profanity as comedy, etc.). We fool ourselves into believing our causes, our wants, and our pains are the only such in the whole world. We kid ourselves that someone else is to blame for our own problems. Because we are stardust, we believe we have privilege over all else that exists.
We are dust, and to dust, we shall return.
Psalm 51 calls us to see where we need to be.
It is a hard psalm to read, let alone sit with in contemplation. We do not want to hear about bones God crushes. We do not want to consider being sinful from the womb. We do not want to wallow in self-denigration.
Just remember that this is really not the point of the psalm. The psalm is a confession. Yes, it tackles our sin full on and head on. But it does so because it confesses that we are not what we puff ourselves up into being. At core, we are actually the same frightened child who awoke in the middle of the night terrified by a bad dream, wanting nothing more than the physical presence of a protecting parent right by our side.
If we take the ashes this day upon on brow, we claim that child.
If our recent history over the last few months in America revealed nothing, it revealed our feeling of helplessness in a world flown beyond our control. Some voted because they saw a person able to regain control of this crazy world. Some did not vote for exactly the same reason because they did not trust the offered control. The stunning reformation of the world by technology that eliminates so many things human beings used to do, that instantaneously brings literally everything in the world into our laps, and that, ironically, leaves us less able to intimately bond with anyone frightens us. At a loss, we cry for help, praying there is someone there who will wrap themselves around us to protect us.
The ashes indicate a good choice.
God is present. God is able. God is love.
There is that abiding surety we hunger for. There is that lasting embrace that makes us feel so very sheltered. There is the certain hope that dawn comes.
God hears us. God mends us. God helps us.
The ashes are our welcome of all that God offers.
Peace be with you.
Amen, amen, amen.
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