Today is Ash Wednesday:  the first day of Lent.  Ash Wednesday is a call to humility.  It is a call to recognize that we are, indeed, ultimately no more than collections of chemicals which, one day, will be dust.  Ash Wednesday is a sign to all of us that life is not so much about getting what we want, but about learning from this life what we have been given.  In contrast to the vapid frivolity of the global culture of celebrity, Ash Wednesday reminds us that we cannot escape our mortality.

     Even if you do not celebrate Ash Wednesday, savor what it means.  Savor the  i

t means.  

goodness of humility, taste the joy of circumspection.  Bask in repentance and forgiveness, human and divine, and revel in resolving to admit to your place, to let go, and move on.  Delight in the journey, the journey, as the prophet MIcah puts it, to "walk circumspectly with your  God."  
     And delight in Lent's end:  the remembrance and celebration of the reality of resurrection.
     God will yet win.
     As I did last year, I offer this prayer by Jan Richardson:

     Will you meet us
     in the ashes

     will you meet us
     in the ache
     and show your face
     within our sorrow
     and offer us
     your word of grace.

     That you are life
     within the dying
     that you abide
     within the dust
     that you are what
     survives the burning
     that you arise
     to make us new.

     And in our aching
     you are breathing
     and in our weeping
     you are here
     within the hands
     that bear your blessing
     enfolding us
     within your love.