FROM THE VICAR

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You are dust and to dust you shall return.

Sunday, January 22^nd, leaving worship, I was met with high winds and a sky  that was thick with blowing reddish brown dust. This dust was everywhere. My car was coated with a fine layer of dust. Everywhere I touched anything it left my finger prints on it and the dust would cling to me as well. The first thing that came to my mind were the words at the heading of this column…ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

It made me think of the season of Lent almost being upon us and how we will be hearing those words as we receive the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. The imposition of ashes feels like an imposition, a stark reminder that we will not live forever. It is a humbling reminder of our limits and finitude as human beings; that we are merely dust in the wind.

We are a children of God, of the earth, created from dust, yet filled with the breath of God. As we turn to God, we ask for mercy, we ask God to remove this dusty film of sin that is upon us. We ask God to wash away our sins and create in us clean hearts.

The season of Lent calls us into a deeper relationship with God and service to others. The honest confronting of our sins enables us to humbly know our limits as children of earth. We are utterly dependent on earth at every moment of our lives….earth to earth, dust to dust reminds us that we are always rooted  in earth as creatures….so, the issue is not whether we can escape earth…we can not. We live in earth as well as earth.