Remember that you are dust ...

This was the picture that I snapped on my way up the driveway to my office this morning ... last night's Mardi Gras balloons unceremoniously waiting the Wednesday trash pickup.

I think that this is as apt an icon for "remember that you are dust" as about anything else I've seen on an Ash Wednesday in a life lived in the Episcopal Church!

The good news, of course, is that even as we enter these 40 days of Lent with ashes on our foreheads -- and balloons in our dumpsters -- we remember not only that we are dust and to dust we shall return, but that in that dust we return to the God of ultimate love, creativity, compassion and justice.

We remember that at its end life is changed, not ended.

We remember that the God who loved us enough to become one of us to show us how to love one another waits to gather us into Her loving embrace.

We remember all that and more as we now journey, once again, into these 40 days of prayer and reflection; conversation and contemplation; silence and solidarity.

And may the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit -- this Lent and always. Amen.

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