What's the proper greeting for Ash Wednesday? In my sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated state this morning, I kept wanting to say "Happy Ash Wednesday!" but that seems a bit out of character for the nature of the day. In reality, the most appropriate greeting is probably what was said to each person today as ashes were smudged on their forehead in the sign of the cross toward which we as a people are turning our lives as well as our calendars:
Remember that from dust you were made, and to dust you will return.
What a statement. I'm not sure what I thought that meant in past years, but this year, the dust business is hitting me in a powerful way. It turns out that God generally doesn't pull any punches, and when He says that He made us out of dust, it's true. Have you ever really looked at dust? I spend a lot of my time cleaning up coffee grounds, and coffee dust, and those particles are so tiny! Even the packed grounds from the espresso machine, carefully shaped into hockey pucks (or brownies, if you have a gullible new barista on staff), are really pretty much useless. You can't build anything out of them. They can barely stick together. And yet, God made the human body out of dust. And then breathed life into it. And then invited those dusty lives into His plan for the universe. When I say it like that, I suddenly find it hard to believe how much of the credit I take for my very existence, when clearly, dust in incapable of all those things I just said.
I'm a church calendar snob. Truly. I pride myself on knowing lots of random facts, and being able to give a short lecture on how the church calendar works (although that's not my fault- when you take the classes I did in college and hear the same mini-lecture the first day of each one to get everyone on the same page, you'd memorize it accidentally too!). This year, I find myself in a church community that doesn't really seem to place significance on this sort of thing. And I think that's because they don't see it as a value of the New Testament church. Which I totally get. Really. But my snobby little self was sad today because I didn't get to attend a worship service that was a little bit solemn, and I didn't have anybody look me in the eye and say, "Kathryn, remember that from dust you were made, and to dust you will return." I honestly believe that observing the church calendar can help keep us honest and connect us to centuries of traditions that have remained the same despite incredibly shifts in cultural contexts and social values. But mostly, I think that today I was just missing some of the rhythms and people and places that have been important in my life in the past. Instead, tonight I went to community group. And I realized that sometimes you don't need someone to tell you that you're made of dust and to dust you will return, because sometimes you're lucky enough to know people who will live that with you. People who let you into every aspect of their lives, so much so that you have no choice but to believe that they are dust. People who are so present in your life that they have no choice but to believe that you're dust. A community that is transparent enough to see that the only life we have comes from the great Dust Sculptor himself. There's a verse somewhere in the New Testament about having a sober view of ourselves, not thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought to. Tonight, I'm thankful for the dust buddies I have in my life who keep me honest. It's not always fun, but it's always good.
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