"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Christian season of Lent. Lent is a time of preparation that grows in anticipation of Easter, the Resurrection of Jesus. Lent provides an opportunity for reflection, assessment, repentance, prayer and fasting.
The big question in many Christian households today is "what are you giving up for Lent?" And in most Episcopal households you can add "what are you taking on for Lent?" I grew up in a Roman Catholic household and observed Lent every year and knew every year I was to give something up. When I began attending the Episcopal Church my first Lent was a different experience for me when my Priest offered the option of taking something on. It put a whole new twist on Lent, a new way of exploring my relationship with God.
And to me that is really the point of Lent. For me Lent is a time to explore my relationship with God, with the Divine, with Love. It is a time for me to reflect on my daily life and my actions in this world - do I show Love to my neighbor, do I act in compassion with each person I encounter, do I stay present to the person placed before me and see Jesus in them, are they able to see Jesus in me?
For most of my years Ash Wednesday gave me great anxiety. You see today I will go to church and listen to scripture that tells me "And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting." What happens next is I will kneel at the altar and have ashes put on my forehead, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." It seemed so against scripture, so hypocritical to what we just heard, to place this visible sign of fasting upon our forehead.
Then one Ash Wednesday it occurred to me that Lent is not all about the fasting, deprivation and giving up, it isn't even about taking on and blessing others. No, Lent, for a girl like me is about being the Prodigal Daughter. Lent is about waking up this morning and realizing I am sitting in a pig sty of my own making, that I have wandered far from home, that I have forgotten who I am and where I come from. Lent is looking up to the heavens from my seat in the filth of my own created circumstances and crying out "help me find my way home, this is not where I belong!" Lent is the journey of Repentance, standing up, turning around and heading back home to God.
The next 40 days is my opportunity to pick myself up and begin the long journey to the cross. Along the way I will discover new things about myself and the Divine Almighty God who created me. I will die to the material things that have en captured my attention through intentional and deliberate fasting. I will awaken to my neighbor and see the face of Jesus in the people who are placed before me as I take on actions of mercy, justice, compassion and dare I hope, Love. I will make those steps to the cross and experience the ultimate sacrifice of Love's redemption. I will stay up all night in Vigil those final steps approaching home and I will be rekindled with the energy of the Light of the world. Easter day is our celebration, our hope and Resurrection, our walking into our Father's land and seeing that He has been standing on the front porch looking for us, anticipating and longing for our return. We are home, in our Father's arms, welcomed and reminded that we are dust, the beloved dust of True Love and to dust, into True Love, we will return.
Now the ashes on my forehead make sense to me. Now I realize the ashes are a visible sign for me - no one else, really just for me - to allow me to once again see the seal of my baptism when I was marked as Christ's own Forever. The ashes allow me time to remember who I am and where I come from and grace me with the opportunity to travel the road of repentance. The road that leads home into the loving arms of God.
"At last, I understood what religion was really all about. Or at least was supposed to be about. I didn't just believe in God; I knew God.
As I hobbled to the altar to take Communion,
tears streamed down my cheeks."
Eben Alexander, M.D. (pg. 148 Proof of Heaven)
Blessings on your Lenten journey.
