I spent two hours this afternoon offering “ashes to go” on the campus of Quinnipiac University, which sits about a mile from my church. The school enlisted several clergy to take shifts today. They placed me on the first floor of the Student Center, across the atrium the Starbucks. This was the inaugural year of the offering, so we weren’t sure how many students or staff would participate. By the time the dust cleared, so to speak, I had smudged the foreheads of 275 students in 120 minutes.
I share the number not as an accomplishment, but as a surprise. I didn’t feel rushed, nor was I simply rattling off the same words to each person. When it comes to liturgy, I’m not a good repeater. I mean everyone heard about ashes and dust, but I was hoping for room for all of us to be caught by surprise, so I gave myself room for a bit of improvisation.
One thing I did do with everyone was to ask their name. One said her name with big smile and then said, “What’s yours?” I called their name and then said some variation of these words:
“We say, ‘You have come from dust and to dust you will return,’ to remember we are beautiful and temporary. You also came from love–that is the eternal story. You are God’s beloved child and that love will never let you go. God bless you.”
As I spoke, I looked them directly in the eye. Most of them looked right back at me, soaking it in, and a majority of them blessed me right back. A few teared up, and a whole bunch of them broke into big grins and thank me, or said, “Amen.”
Traditionally, the Gospel text for the first Sunday of Lent is the account of Jesus being tested in the wilderness. That experience comes on the heels of his baptism, where he hears a voice say, “This is my beloved child in whom I delight.” Though I get the call for humility in coming to terms with our mortality, what guided my words today was hoping the Lenten journey of those I met might begin just as Jesus’ did, with an unabashed declaration of our value and worth to God and to one another.
We are dust, and we are beloved dust. We are not scum trying to work our way of the Bog of Eternal Shame, we are loved. Really, really loved. And that is what gives us hope to live into our calling as those wonderfully and uniquely created in the image of God and worthy to be loved. We are all dust in wind, even as we are significant specks because we are born in original love.
Peace,
Milton