Lydia Mulkey
February 13, 2018
The season of Lent begins tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is one of those strange days in our church calendar that many people don’t understand. Why would we dedicate a whole day to reflecting on our mortality? And bring our children along? It sounds… morbid. The reason I observe Ash Wednesday is because God doing incredible things with dust is central to our faith. God created the world out of dust, then created us out of dust. Creation continues to work because things die and become the dust in which new life is planted and grows. The dust and death of Lent is inseparable from the fresh, new life of Easter. We must acknowledge and accept the dust of Lent if we want to fully experience the new life of Easter, so I am all in!
I believe this poem by Jan Richardson speaks to the importance of observing this day in the church calendar. I hope you’ll read it now, and that it will inspire you to join us as we hear it together tomorrow at 7pm in sanctuary.
Blessing the Dust: A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
By Jan Richardson
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
See you tonight at 6pm for the churchwide chili cookoff! This is a fundraiser for FUJI (First United Junior High). Come to taste and vote on the chili, or come with your chili to compete!
