Last year, my father died on the day before Ash Wednesday. He was 85 years old, and he’d lived a wonderful, respectable Christian life, full of charity toward others, including prison ministry in his retirement. He’d enjoyed a fulfilling professional career, been a good friend to many, and was happily married for over 50 years to a wonderful woman with whom he’d raised a big, happy family. Letting go of this kind, funny, intelligent and loving man was hard and sad, but something about it also felt right. It was Dad’s time, and we’ll all have our time.
Ash Wednesday invites us all to reflect on “our time” – to remember that indeed our time approaches, even if still far off. We wear ashes on our foreheads to symbolize, as a recent NPR article put it, that we are all “dust-creatures”. There is an impermanence to our earthly lives that we must never forget, lest we fail to live lives of charity and love with every breath. Psalm 95 says, “If today you hear God’s voice/harden not your hearts,” for tomorrow, you may be gone. On Ash Wednesday we remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
