Tuesday, March 04, 2014

Ash Wednesday

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 
- Mary Oliver

Every year, as spring is just barely announcing itself, I get up early and head to church. I step into the aisle between the pews. I walk up to the priest. She dips her finger in the ashes, makes the mark of the cross on my forehead, and says to me, with a smile, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Remember. Not learn. Not understand. Remember. Because the knowledge of our own mortality is embedded. It’s part of being human. It’s a remembrance. We push it away, but we know it to be true: Life is ridiculously, beautifully, painfully short.

I mean, I forget that all the time. Don’t you?

No comments: