02.22.2023 | Ash Wednesday

"Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Today, we are called to remember our mortality and failures.  We are called to confront our beautiful, messy, sinful selves and bare ourselves to our God.  This becomes even more real as I am getting older and mortality is more real than ever.  There comes a bit of calm knowing it is not all up to us.  It is comforting to know that God loves us, just the way we are, right now.  

I love this prayer by Jan Richardson called "Ash Wednesday:  Blessing the Dust"
So let us be marked
not for sorrow
And let us be marked 
not for shame
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

We begin our journey into Lent today.  Through the messy ashes comes the holiness of God.