Day 1: The Day of Ashes

 

I went to the kids school this morning because I needed to talk to the principal about some things, but I ended up staying for chapel. The pastor gave this great simple message to the kids where he juxtaposed two powerful images about ashes

First, he conjured the feeling of camping and how the black soot of ashes from the campfire seem to get on everything and how by the end of the trip everything seems to smell like smoke.

Then he described the images from the old testament of repentance or grief. Ripping of clothes and the wearing of sackcloth and ashes. He described it simply as a way to show publicly that you are going through a difficult time. 

From dust you came,  to dust you shall return.

The two images rolled around in my head all day.  Some humorous pictures popped up... my kids dressed in sackcloth running around a campfire; Job grieving with friends and kids throwing ashes and totally running the somber vibe.

But I also thought about how grief and guilt stick around like the smell of a campfire. How they are inevitable parts of life as much as kids covered in filth is an inevitable part of camping.  

We do not escape death.  One day,  the log finishes burning and the light and warmth go out.  The ashes on our forehead remind us of this. But they are in the shape of a cross to remind us that there is nowhere,  not even into death, where we can go that God will not be with us. 

Today I start practices to listen and to seek God.  But God has never left me.  Like the smell of smoke,  God is an ever present unseen presence who holds and guides and comforts me no matter what.