Our mortality is front and center on Ash Wednesday - the first day of the season of Lent. As the creaky, dry ashes are rubbed into your forehead, the priest says, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return." This afternoon, about 75 people came to "Ashes to Go" in front of Starbucks. After Louise and I said a little prayer, applied the ashes and said the words about dust, people would look up, smile, and say thank you. Thank you? I just told you that you're going to die and you say thank you?
Old churches were intentionally built with cemeteries right outside their windows to remind the people in the pews of their own deaths every Sunday. Early monastics would keep all their worldly possessions in their coffins as a reminder of their mortality, and early missionaries would often use their own coffins as their traveling trunks - sometimes even sleeping in them once they arrived at their destination! There is a certain freedom in living like you're dying - like you've got nothing to lose. And for the Christian, there is freedom in dying in Christ, for only when we die with him can we be raised into new life. It's letting go of our own lives to gain them.
I met an Anglican priest from Uganda this morning. He noted that Ash Wednesday is the one day of the year that you get to visit your own funeral. And I got to wondering, if I were at my own funeral, what would I like to hear people saying about me? What kind of love would I hope I'd left behind? Ash Wednesday is like a wake up call to get moving on making my life into the kind of life that results in the kind of funeral I hope someday to have. It's also a reminder that I'm already dead in Christ and can therefore trust God in stepping into a whole new life - a whole new me that is more fully in God.
It takes just a small correction of the wheel for a ship's destination to be completely different. What little corrections can you make in the way you live, love and act in this world to change the outcome of your whole life? If you can think of even just a little thing you can let go of that will free you from the burden of self, or if you can think of even just a little new practice you can adopt that will mold you more into who you are being called to be - today's the day to start trying these things on. Lent is a season of practicing being new.
Thank you for taking the time to share these thoughts, Elsa. Your words are powerful, and this insightful post gives me a lot to think about. I can see some obvious "corrections" that would benefit my life, but I am intrigued by what else I will uncover by looking deeper into myself. I am looking forward to reflection on these ideas, and practicing being new this lenten season. :)
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