Ashes to Ashes

It is almost time for Lent, that season leading up until Easter. Yesterday I was talking to a woman at the gym. The talk got around to church. She is a Christian, but she did not know what Lent meant. It is good to know what Lent means. A time to prepare, to reflect, to look inward and to look upward toward God. To examine our relationship with God, and our relationships with one another. To anticipate Easter, not in the sense of shopping for new clothes or buying Easter candy, but in the sense of spring cleaning, from the inside out. In the sense of discipline: prayer, reading scripture, giving more. Even giving up something we like to eat in order to remind ourselves of all kinds of things: we depend on God for everything; everything we have is a gift; so many in our world rarely have enough to eat.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Ash Wednesday. We get a mark of ashes on our foreheads to remind us of our mortality. To remind us that we are earth people, people made from the stuff of the earth (primordial soup?), and people whose bodies will return to the stuff of the earth. Sobering, but that is the point. When we realize how brief life is, and how much God loves us, it tends to put everything in perspective. Everything.