Lent – purple – Spring!
Doesn’t look much like spring out there today!
I've always had a hard time connecting spring and ashes
Spring represents life – ashes represent death
Forests where the burning is done purposely in order to renew the soil and let the vegetation grow back and renew the forest floor.
Out of the ash, new life can emerge
Out of the snow and death of winter, new life can emerge
Ashes are a reminder that we are just that, carbon and water, yet if you were to simply mix the two, you could never have it create beautiful works of art or compose heartbreakingly wonderful music. We can do that because in addition to carbon and water, we are spirit. Animated Stardust.
Doesn’t look much like spring out there today!
I've always had a hard time connecting spring and ashes
Spring represents life – ashes represent death
Forests where the burning is done purposely in order to renew the soil and let the vegetation grow back and renew the forest floor.
Out of the ash, new life can emerge
Out of the snow and death of winter, new life can emerge
Ashes are a reminder that we are just that, carbon and water, yet if you were to simply mix the two, you could never have it create beautiful works of art or compose heartbreakingly wonderful music. We can do that because in addition to carbon and water, we are spirit. Animated Stardust.
In the funeral liturgy, we say Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust. When we die, and our human body breaks down, we are not lost. What makes us who we are as children of God, little sparks of the divine, lives on. We take those memories with us, the good the bad the hurts, the loves, the terrible things we've done, the beautiful things we've done, those whose lives we have touched and those who have touched our lives. We don't just live on in the memories of those left behind, we live on in spirit with God.
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust… Spirit to Spirit
Sometimes on this journey we choose what is wrong. We make mistakes and we fall short of becoming who our Creator and Redeemer is calling us to be. Today is a time where we honestly face and admit our frailties, using the ancient sign of ashes.
We acknowledge and ask God for forgiveness in our failure to be who it is we are called to be.
our lack of love
our tempers
our hatred
our ego
our pride
our jelously
our half-hearted Christian committment
our attempts to make ourselves feel better through others suffering
and the list goes on...
But it's not about guilt - it's about God's grace.
Today doesn't end with ashes, our lives don't end with ashes. We are pure spirit, and by the Grace of God we are able to rejoice in life after life. Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust.... Spirit to Spirit
Thanks be to God!
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