Reflecting on Ash Wednesday

I didn't grow up in a highly liturgical faith tradition. Consequently, at 27, this was the first year I participated in an Ash Wednesday service. I found it quite meaningful to have ashes smudged on my forehead while hearing the words, "Remember, O woman, that you are dust and to dust you will return." During a moment of reflection that night, I wrote,

Self sufficient?

There is a sense in which this his nothing more than an outright lie

Show me the man who thinks he is self-sufficient and I will ask him,

"From where does your next breath come?"

As I sit here,

watching smoldering flames

dwindling to coals, then ash,

I think of Hil's mom

on her deathbed...

Woman, you leave behind loved ones

surprised by your sudden departure;

you leave behind tears, aching hearts -

a poignant reminder taht nothing can be taken for granted.

Soon I will follow you.

I am dust

and to dust I will return.

This season, I am continually impressed by the fragility of life and the fact that we can take nothing for granted. We must hold loosely. We're not entitled to anything. It's all here today, gone tomorrow. I find Solomon's words resonating in my heart: "Meaningless! Meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

Yancey, summarizes a similar sentiment well in his chapter on the book of Ecclesiastes in The Bible Jesus Read: "Our best attempts backfire. We learn to prolong life, yet fail to provide meaning for the people permanently attached to the whirring machines – and so Kevorkians arise with alternative solutions. We bring antibiotics to underdeveloped countries, only to see the infant mortality rates plummet, populations soar, and the specter of famine rear up. We dump a hundred billion dollars into a War on Poverty and end up with more poor people than ever before."

Yancey goes on to offer this commentary on Solomon's words in the book of Ecclesiastes, "Somehow, the teacher counsels at the end, take the leap of faith and believe that there is a God, and that this life will make sense one day: when the eternity in our hearts will find its Sabbath rest, when the burden of the gods will settle on our resurrected shoulders with a bearable lightness of being."

Most of the time I believe this. Sometimes I succumb to doubt.