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In the services for Ash Wednesday there are usually opportunities to recieve the traditional 'Imposition of Ashes' - a smudge of ash from the burned Palm Leaf Crosses from Palm Sunday of the year before in the shape of a cross on the forehead. At that moment of 'imposition' a brief sentence is said: 

Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.

We are reminded of our own mortality, that just as the Creation story we inherited from our Jewish forebears says we were created from dust, we will one day return to that dust. The name 'Adam' from the second Jewish creation myth is taken from the Hebrew word adamah, meaning dirt, and the word 'human' shares a common root to 'humus', the organic matter that fertilizes the earth.

When we grasp our mortality, truly grasp it, we are freed up to live without the fear of death - Ash Wednesday attempts to give that sense of freedom, and the opportunity to turn again to the freedom of life without fear.

 

 

"To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2:

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Artwork by Lori-Lyn Hurley, A Prayer-Painting for Ash Wednesday. Lori-Lyn Hurley (lorilynhurley.com)

Worship And Prayer
Observing Lent