Yesterday, many of us had a cross of ashes placed upon our foreheads - a reminder not only of our Christian identity, but also of our mortality. This launch into the Lenten season seems a dark and ominous start to a 40 day period of reflection leading to the events of Holy Week and culminating in the joyous celebrations of Easter morning.
Today, it is again gray and raining in Seattle. I have spent the better part of the day crafting a worship service for this upcoming first Sunday in Lent. This has been a particularly challenging task as the pastor of this church is in his last moments of life. The treatment for cancer has been halted - the cancer continues its life draining progress through the body. In addition, I have been informed that the husband of a colleague died very suddenly, with no warning this past Monday. Another friend has alerted his community of support that his mother, long in decline, is also in her last moments of life. Death seems to surround me. The dark clouds and wind driven rain seem appropriate to the mood of the day.
We Americans struggle with death. I personally do not think that we have a very healthy attitude about death. We clean up the language, we package the body neatly in an expensive coffin or small box for ashes and we expect those closest who remain to get over it in a "reasonable" amount of time. Lent is a journey to death - to Jesus' violent, ugly, bloody death on the cross. And Lent is a journey to life; for the story did not end at the cross. I find it appropriate that Lent happens as Winter tapers into Spring. That which has been dormant comes slowly back to life. That which has died gives nurture and nourishment to that which is coming to life.
And so, on this windy, rainy, gray afternoon, I contemplate life and death because from ashes I have come...
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