March 6: Remember that you are dust!

“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Ash Wednesday is not about making us feel like a worm; it is NOT about proclaiming that we are the lowest of the low (sorry, Luther).

Ash Wednesday starts a pilgrimage---our yearly pilgrimage, and we begin with remembering who we are.

Chapter 2 of Genesis tells us that we are adamah---dust, soil---adamah that becomes adam (Adam….in Hebrew meaning man or human).  We become human because God takes us in God’s hand and blows the breath of God into the adamah---giving us life and soul and being.

Ash Wednesday begins our Lenten journey; this journey that we as pilgrims---seekers who seek the Holy---walk each year in order to re-align ourselves with our True North---the Human who came to show us how to be human---Jesus.

We begin with the words “remember that you are dust” because in this world that tries to convince us that we are in control, Ash Wednesday reminds us that God is in control.  That God is the Creator---our Creator.  That all that we are, all that we have, the very fact that we exist---is all thanks be to God.

Ash Wednesday provides a ritual, and readings, and symbols to put us in our place---we are the Created, not the Creator.  We belong to God, not to our selves.  We are the adamah into which God blows the breath of life.  Creatures who are not made to be self-centered, but to be God-centered.

Adamah-----transformed into adam---pilgriming our way through this life, empowered by the Holy Spirit and joined by Jesus Christ through fellow pilgrims---in order that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God.  This is our promise.  This is our pilgrimage.  Let the journey begin.

And as pilgrims we recognize, that in order to arrive at the destination, we must know where we begin and be intentional in the seeking, the journeying, the moving closer and closer to God who invites us.