We Start as Dirt and to Dirt We Return
God answers the mess of life with a single word. Several years ago my parents took my eldest son and his cousin to Grand Camp in Athens, TX. It was a weekend to connect, grow across generations and simply be together. At one point during the weekend grandparents and grandchildren were on the red concrete slab together with chalk and invited to draw symbols of their faith. Amongst the pictures and words that were temporarily written on that slab my dad wrote in big letters “GRACE”.
I love this picture. Grace alone on the slab would be enough but it means more to me surrounded by other symbols of belief written by adults and children from all points of view. If you’ve been around young children the moments are joyous and chaotic all together. Lines are crossed, rules broken and thoughts and feelings collide with one another.
And God answers the chaos and mess with a single word — GRACE.
As we experience Ash Wednesday the meaning of this word is heightened. We are reminded today of the beauty of our mortality. We are born of dirt and to dirt we all return. Today will be messy and tumultuous. There will be moments of joy and sadness. We will feel the roller coaster of emotions that come with being human and ask the questions that mire us in the resistance of our minds:
Am I good enough?
Am I capable?
Am I worthy?
These questions and others keep us from adding to the storyline between our beginning and end. We paralyze ourselves from the opportunity to share and offer who we are today thinking that the us of later days will be more valuable. Today we are enough and our enough matters to others.
Each day we have between the bookends of life is an opportunity to layer grace on top of the joyous mess of life starting with ourselves. My friend Ken Crawford said it very well today:
Just be you. You are enough.
It’s Ash Wednesday.
The goal today is not to feel bad about ourselves. It’s to lovingly come to terms with our own mortality, with all its messiness and harshness and sadness. And to sit in that for a moment, together in community, and hear the words as an affirmation and a blessing, not as a judgement or curse. Let the words free you from all presumptions and posturing.
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
We each spend a part of the day suffering with harshness and saddness, anger, fear and disappointment. Today is a day to reflect on the reality of our mortality and layer the grace given to us that we can, today and every day, choose to share.
Peace & Grace
(my dad use to close each email, letter and writing with this phrase)