Ashes to Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. Depending on who you are and how you grew up it may mean something different. To me Ash Wednesday signifies redemptive curiosity, wholeness and brokenness as we live in community with one another.  It represents the bold, all-encompassing, and unconditional love that God has for each of us and all of us.

Growing up in a Lutheran church we also celebrated Ash Wednesday, though there it meant something a little different.  To them it means three things: sinfulness, mortality, and redemption.  When Lutherans receive ashes the phrase used is "You are dust and to dust you shall return".  There is something humbling about that phrase.  To me it tells about how ultimately we will return to the earth in death.  It always made me wonder, "What about life and living?  Why do we seem to celebrate death so much?"  Perhaps there is something beautiful to be found in reflecting on death during this season.

At Highlands here in Denver the phrase said is "Do you not know what the Holy One can do with ashes?"  I like this phrase because it feels truer to me of what God is like.  To me it's saying, "Do you not know how loved you are by the creator of the universe?  Do you not know there is nothing you can do that will separate you from my love?  Child, you are mine and you belong.  You do not have to earn my love- you already have it!  You are redeemed."  This phrase celebrates life.

This evening while at Highlands for the Ash Wednesday service we reflected on a poem by Mary Oliver called "Wild Geese".  It goes like this:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

A line that catches my attention every time I hear it is the part about letting the soft animal of your body loving what it loves. For a while it reminded me of my sexuality and was helpful to me in my journey of self-acceptance of being queer.  Now, it gives me the freedom to give myself permission to more fully embrace all parts of me, my personality, and the things I like while not caring as much about what others might think.  Tonight what captured my attention was a new interpretation of the poem, which is that no matter what challenges come our way, and no matter how lonely we might feel, we still have a place and a role to play in the grand scheme of the world.  We are not alone.  We are all accepted just the way we are, in all our messiness.

Tonight I felt all-encompassing love as I sat there surrounded by people I love, in a place that I love. I didn't know just how much I needed to be there until I was there experiencing it all.  I was excited to have the chance to help give ashes to each person who came forward to receive them.  It was a very special and magical experience.  I got to do it with Jenny Morgan, one of the pastors at Highlands.  I loved having the opportunity to do so.  While putting the ashes on peoples' foreheads I found that I couldn't contain the joy at watching each person receive ashes as the phrase, "Beloved of God, do you not know what the Holy One can do with ashes?" was said to them.  Watching each person's face who came and received them be transformed was truly something else; it was a sacred moment I will treasure in the days to come.  There truly was something in the air tonight at Highlands Church North Denver.

This year for the season of Lent I have decided to both add something and give up something.  What I'm adding is moments of reflection in an effort to more fully embrace and grow more fully into who I am.  What I want to give up is fear of judgement from others.  I'm excited for a new chapter beginning, and I'm excited for what the future holds, as yet unknown as it may be.