“Remember that you are dust; and to dust you shall return.”
With these worth, the sign of the cross, and the imposition of ashes we once again began our forty-day Lenten journey.
During this season of fasting, penance, alms-giving and special devotions we seek a deeper union with God. The spiritual goal of this season is to clear away and cast aside unnecessary things in our lives through self-discipline and restraint. We try to become more vulnerable and open to the unity that we call holiness.
Far too often, Lent becomes a season wherein we practice personal piety through discipline and reflection that leads to an unhealthy preoccupation with self and an isolated personal pietism.
While personal devotion and piety can help clear away the sinful clutter of our lives and prepare us for the glorious Easter event, the observance of a holy Lent is best practiced with an eye to the community and society of which we are a part.
It is in this spirit that I Invite your reflection on ashes and dust.
A view from the train
I am an incurable railroad buff. Like many others, I love rail travel and have been saddened in the last two decades by the decline of railway passenger service. Amtrak is a sad vestige of what was once a civilized and wonderful way to travel and see our country.
Whenever and wherever I can, I use rail travel both to support the need for passenger service and also to try to recapture, in some way, fond memories from my youth, of traveling from California to Minnesota by train.
Two particular trips within the last year have provided me with an experience of ashes and dust. I share these experiences with you this month to focus on a more corporate understanding of the meaning of Lent.
ASHES
Not long ago I had an opportunity to take a train from Washington, D. C. to New York City. I looked forward to seeing a part of the country I had not seen in some time.
An unanticipated and disconcerting experience awaited me as I traveled from our nation’s capitol to our country’s largest city. It was the experience of ashes: the closed and rusting factories and warehouses, burned-out housing projects, poverty, decay, pollution, indifference, waste, a deep and pervasive sense of defeat.
The great smokestacks of our country, the smokestacks of industry were extinguished. Ashes.
The death of an era; the death of confidence built on production; the death of pride in manufacturing; the death of measurable productivity. Ashes.
The silence of rusting machinery, broken windows. The silence of empty places without any human voices. Ashes.
DUST
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to travel from Omaha to Denver to attend a meeting of Province VI bishops. It was an experience of dust.
As the tired train labored over neglected road beds, I caught glimpses of Nebraska and eastern Colorado that carried with them the experience of dust: the experience of lifelessness, change, depression and a pervasive sense of despair.
Abandoned farm houses, small towns dying, the gaping emptiness of vacant storefronts, the dust of disuse.
Call it the agricultural crisis; threatened farm economy; demise of a cherished and sacred way of life in our land, the family farm.
These words do not do justice to the experience of dust.
The experience of abandonment, dashed hopes, dreams forgotten. Dust.
Misplaced confidence in a way of life that promised never to end. Dust.
The backbone of our nation, the breadbasket of the world, the individualism and independence of the American way of life. Dust.
A new dust bowl created not by drought but by a dryness of the souls and a withering of the spirit. Dust.
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
ASHES AND DUST
Two experiences and two journeys. Painful experiences and journeys of dislocation.
Ashes and Dust: a new experience for us in this country, a country of unbridled optimism.
Ashes and dust: experiences of defeat and finitude.
Ashes and dust: the continuing end of our innocence as a nation; the sobering defeats abroad and economic, political and moral defeats within.
Ashes and dust. A time to repent: To repent not only as individuals but as communities, as a nation.
A time to repent of our arrogance, pride, hypocrisy and upward mobility/sinfulness.
A time to repent of inflated national ego and corporate conceit.
A time to repent of the individualism that has become selfishness.
A time to repent of the independence that has become self-centeredness and indifference to others.
A time to repent of the corruption, pollution and misuse of our created order.
A time to repent of the illusion of immortality.
Repent and remember
Ashes and dust. A time to repent and a time to remember.
A time to repent of the sin that separates us from God and brings with it the notion that we are gods.
A time to repent of the separation from our earth, this fragile island home, in our confusion of claiming to be creators rather than co-creators.
A time to repent of the separation of our lives from one another through callous indifference and apathy and insatiable appetite for consumption.
A time to repent of the separation that we feel within, a separation that mirrors the brokenness without.
Ashes and dust. A time to repent and a time to remember.
To remember the earth from which we take our humanity, our home, our incarnation.
To remember that it is only in community that we are fully human.
To remember that as individuals we are embedded and embodied in time, space, history and community.
To remember our mortality, finitude and impermanence.
Lent, a time to repent and a time to remember. To repent of the divisions as we pray for unity. To remember ashes and dust. To remember: we are dust and to dust we shall return.