“Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.”

From dust we came, in dust we live – and yet from dust we are formed in order to live amid the dust of life on earth as a reflection of the Creator’s love and mercy. “God’s love and mercy often seems so severe,” I agonized to myself as I looked at the mounds of earth beside the grave. Somehow, although I believe it to be true, I’ve never felt much satisfaction in the promise of a future resurrection from the dust. Why do we have to go through all the pain of human mortality – of sin, struggle and suffering – just to end up being put into a hole in the ground and swallowed up by the earth from whence we came?
It is difficult to imagine anything immortal beyond the real dust and ashes of human life. And yet between the lowly dust of our formation and the funereal dust of our remains, there is an opportunity to count for cosmic good or evil. It is within the dust of everyday living that many people settle for the illusion that dust is all there is and thus give in to life as a meaningless accident or even a catastrophe, while others treat life as a carnival for self indulgence and grab all the gusto they can get before itÂ’s gone. And there are also those who bow, as children of the dust, in recognition of the Creator who breathes life into dust and ultimately creates beauty out of ashes.

Rooted in the ancient traditions of the Western church, “Ash Wednesday” marks the beginning of Lent. To this day, Ash Wednesday is celebrated as a day of penitence in churches around the world. During special services, a priest or minister dips his thumb into a bowl of ashes and marks the sign of the cross on the forehead of believers saying, – “Remember man that you art dust and unto dust you will return.” Yet the very words uttered signal not fatalism or the futility of life, but serve as a reminder that the time between the dust and the ashes has meaning and is sacred.

On Ash Wednesday I remember my other's lives, and I think about my own life and the journey I am on – born out of the dust of creation, living in the dust of human struggle and suffering, recognizing that my own days will end in dust and ashes. It is a humbling thought. The only time I have is now – a time of realization that my life is God-given and God-dependent, and that it is no accident I am alive – there is a purpose. And when my journey ends, dust is not all there ever was or ever will be, for out of dust God created life and from a cold dark cavern of the earth, God’s transforming power broke the stranglehold of evil and of death.

I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. (Job 19:25-26)

Reprinted with permission from Prison Fellowship International.

Posted by: Ogre at 08:05 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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