Ash Wednesday Wisdom
Bishop Sally Dyck's recent blog article invited us to think about the Haiti earthquake and what it might be like to be trapped and wondering if you will even be found. She told of some trapped persons singing hymns together during the 55 hours of waiting. She then asks us to think of what hymn or scriptures we might recall or recite if we were in some similar situation. We were invited to post our thoughts as comments. Frankly, it's not a thought I want to go very deeply into. Oh yes, I could think of my favorite reassuring verse or songs, but to really contemplate my death....and what my final thoughts would be; I would rather not do that even though the recent tragic situations do push us to those imaginations. As a pastor, with you, it has also come much too often as we gather for those funerals and memorials in the church family.

Yet, our Christian spiritual journey does push us exactly into that unpopular corner of pondering our mortality. It is not just the fear based ranting of an old time preacher announcing that you could die tonight! We intentionality have a few special days assigned for it All Saints Sunday is one, Easter too! But it gets specifically named in the up-coming season of Lent and Ash Wednesday Its not a well attended day in most of our Protestant churches and , many don't even acknowledge it. The day of the Ashes smudged on us with the solemn words "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return;" is a deeply honest recognition of our mortality, our fragile giftedness upon the earth. It is not meant to be a day of groveling in morbidness. It is reverently naming a truth of who we are. Even in the ashes, we are marked for life in Jesus Christ and are marked with hope as God's beloved people. Death will be a part of the journey in Life. Our denial only distorts the spiritual condition.
In my journal I have pasted some pages based on Stephen Levine's research project called "The Year to Live.” Levine teaches in the areas of grief and terminal illness. He worked with questions such as : If you thought the coming year would be your last, what changes would you make in your life? Who would you connect with? Would you have any regrets? Then in his “project” he acted as if he would be alive for only one more year. He reviewed past events, both good and bad, that had impacted his life. He was inspired to show his gratitude and appreciation to the many people who had touched his life in positive ways. He developed a more loving and compassionate view of the world. He found strength to forgive past hurts and resentments that he had been hanging on to. The thought of dying allowed him to find the courage to commit to living a full life, and in a way to overcome the fear of death. When you are living on borrowed time, every minute counts. His project was less about completing "a bucket list" of adventures, than about doing good, volunteering, encouraging others; living more gently, reflecting on life, from a different Light. I think that is ultimately what the Lenten ashes are meant to do. You are dust, but the Lenten discipline calls us to a time of reflection, reorganizing, considering the direction of life. We are dust but this dust too, is held and formed into life by the hand and breath of God; creator of heaven and earth. Maybe Mary Oliver has the spirit when she says “To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go." ~ Mary Oliver ~ (American Primitive)

Peace,
(also printed in the Park newsletter)