Last weekend, I wrote in the bulletin about the countless miracles in our world, most of which we never recognize. Because of the high concentration of miracles in this little corner of the universe called Earth, we are snow-blind witnesses to God's abundance.

The awe and joy of such an insight almost contrasts with the liturgical movement of this past week as we started Lent on Ash Wednesday. The perennial disposition of the start of Lent is suspiciously pejorative. Ashes connotate failure, defeat, and lowliness. Penance is seen as penalty instead of restoration. Fasting and abstinence are set to the tone of self-induced-guilt-for-past-pleasures rather than the necessary disciplines for possibility. 

Admittedly, these may be my own personal issues. Perhaps the arrival of Lent for you has a different association. I hope so. In fact, that is my hope in writing this today. On Ash Wednesday a simple line from a poem by Jan Richardson caught my attention (the full poem is below). In the poem, she asks a simple question, "Did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?" 

It is a true question of faith. We falsely subjugate ourselves into believing we have faith if we can recite the Church's prescribed practices for Lent. We give ourselves painfully artificial salvation-points if we think we can describe what they mean and pat ourselves on the back if we actually are disciplined to keep the practice to the 40th day of Lent. But this isn't faith and self-neglect doesn't automatically bring salvific grace. 

Faith is trust, a commitment to hope. It is abandoning ourselves to the wonderful possibility of what could be if we fall freely into God's grace.  The reminder we were given this week - "you are dust" - is not a curse or malediction. We didn't walk around all day with imperfections on our head that called us to shame. Ash Wednesday was a collective reminder that we are walking in the midst of a community-of-miracles in human form. For in fact, you are dust. Do you know what God can do with dust?

We are told about it in the First Reading this Sunday. God made life out of dust. That dust went on to journey across the continents of this planet and design ships that allow them to touch the outer rims of our atmosphere. That dust has built brilliant wonders of architecture, buildings that are powered by the very wind that passes them by. That dust has devised complex economic systems that enable billions to live simultaneously. That dust has discovered how to open a person's heart and remove blockages in the arteries that prevent life. That dust has stood against the evils of racism and discrimination and called us to embody justice rendered luminescent. That dust feeds the hungry and brings life saving assistance to the destitute. Countless times, that dust has been touched, transformed, and inspired by a miracle in our midst, the very breath of God.

The dust that you are, the sacred dust that formed in the kiln of supernova or star, is yearning for a new miracle to be manifest. The glory of God this Lent is found in allowing the greatest potential of yourself to come forth, in trusting that God, who blessed the dust by breathing into you, can do great things with something so simple. No matter how burnt you are, how tired, how worn, or how ready you are to give up. Lent is not a curse to wear you down further. Lent literally means "Spring." Let your faith in God be the springtime that makes miracles happen from the dust and ashes that you are. 

Blessing the Dust

For Ash Wednesday

All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

to the four corners

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial—

did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame.

Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world

is made

and the stars that blaze

in our bones

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

—Jan Richardson

"Blessing the Dust” appears in Jan Richardson's book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons. 

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