Ashes, Ashes

Shelve the "Alleluia".

Lent is returned.

Time to look back and look ahead so to be better seated here in the present, the eternal present. Lent and Advent are my favorite seasons. Granted they're not for everyone, but I'm introspective and introverted by nature, so they suit me and I them.

Plus, I like to wander and wonder so the journey of Lent, through desert and wilderness... and occasionally dried sea beds, also suits me. So on wondering wanderings I will travel, trip and stumble and get up again and keep on walking, all the while soaking in the beauty of it all, the mystery of it all, in self-examinations and reflections on the communities I share.

Where have we been, are we going: what is my, our, intention? Where is the gospel calling me to and where is she the Spirit taking me. Sometimes to the scary place of white-boned self-reality and truth. Yikes, will they again bear new flesh, breath and animation? Spirit always takes us to someplace new, where the laurels of yesterday have faded brown and are tossed upon the fire.

Ashes. Ashes. Ashes we are, ashes we are born of. Ashes of cosmoses past, stars born and died, of ages come and gone on this earth, born and died, all pointing the way to now, this moment, all giving seed to what is now and what is to come. Ashes. Ashes we will be, dusty dust and rusty rust, giving soil to something new, giving seed to something beyond our imaginings and hopes, something alive and enough; alive and enough. Life, wonder and mystery will persist, beyond our wildest aspirations and fears.

The Spirit persists, "No" is not in her vocabulary, for vocabularies are reserved for we who reside a little lower than the angels. She is "Yes". She is "I am". The word of life, the command and covenant for all eternity is the great persistent "Yes", the "I AM", God of Life, God of Love. The God of biology supreme, of geology, chemistry, astronomy and physics, the I AM of existence, perpetually churning forward, life, death, life. Against all odds such is what we are made of: ashes, dust and seed, before us and after us, alive, part and part in the mysterious whole.

God bless the ashes and the life they bring.