"As we live our precarious lives on the brink of the void, constantly coming closer to a state of nonbeing, we are all too often aware of our fragility.” ― Iris Murdoch, author, “Nuns and Soldiers”
This Ash Wednesday, I will perform one of the most poignant, and kind of strange, but oh so powerful, ministerial rituals. I’ll take my forefinger, dip it into a bowl of ash made of burnt palms from last year’s Palm Sunday service, and then I will make a gray and dusty cross upon someone’s forehead. Then I will recite aloud this simple declaration, this truth that no one escapes, that everyone faces into, as very mortal mortals.
“Remember that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return.”
This is the notion that we come from the earth and one day we will all return to the earth. The recognition that like Adam and Eve, God shapes us from the primordial stuff of life at its most basic level, and then we are born, and then at death, we go back to that very same state. Dirt to dirt. And maybe stardust too, stardust to stardust, the ingredient all life is created from by our God of the stars above and the earth below and everything in between.
As a pastor I’ve dealt with the dust and dustiness of human death for a long time. I remember the first time I was asked to actually help spread the ashes of someone who had died. I learned that these really aren’t ashes in a way, more like coarse sand, with larger bits too, of bone. I hope that doesn’t come across as ghoulish but, in a way, I think it’s a good thing to learn about the reality that when our soul departs and goes back to God, the remnants left behind are pretty simple really.
I’ve scattered the ashes of a sailor under the shadow of the Newport Bridge, by the shores of the Naval War College on a warm spring afternoon, the sun dappling the water, a sea breeze blowing in. I’ve buried the remains of a beloved church member below the roots of a newly planted Japanese maple tree, its oh so red leaves reaching up towards heaven. I’ve watched as the remains of a husband and wife were intermingled, these lovers of almost seven decades, reunited one last time. As a battered rowboat glided on an ancient New Hampshire lake, those ashes were slowly scattered to return to the deep, in a precious place, by a lakeside home that family had celebrated so many seemingly endless summers.
But summers always end. As do humans. Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
When I see such human dust, I always feel humbled. It reminds me that I am really not “all that” or oh so special, nope. Nothing fancy. A rich man’s remains look no different than a poor man’s remains. And eventually I will intermingle in the soil, with the soil, just like every other human being. The ashes teach me that I do not have all the time in the world to live, though I may act that way sometimes. And so, if I plan to do something—like say “I love you” or forgive a wrong or give away my treasure—well, I better get to it. We all better get to whatever we need to do. None of us knows when the final bell might ring.
The ash I offer to others, that a colleague will smudge upon my forehead, marks me as living within the boundaries of time and space. Unlike God who was and is and will be, who is eternity, I am and then…I won’t be any more, one day. In my tradition, the gift is that we also believe and hope that when our mortality ends, our eternity begins. We will return to the mysterious power which made us and return to the company of those who died before us, to the loved ones we miss so much.
Ashes to ashes.
I know why Ash Wednesday does not pack ‘em in the pews like Easter or Christmas. It is a somber day. A day of reckoning. A day when we come face to face with our true selves, blemishes, and smudges and all. We face all of our frailties and our scars and that which marks us as human. It is a day when we say, “Dear God, You are God. I am not. Thank God.”
Dust to dust.
On this day, on this Wednesday, may we be reminded of our humanity and of our mortality and not be afraid, but instead embrace with courage the life we still have to live. For it is precious. It is finite. It will one day be over. Remember.
Remember that thou are dust, and unto dust thou shalt return. Amen.
The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.
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