"Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return"
Dear Friends
And this week's reminder came from land (tornado victims in Alabama) from the air (helicopter crash victims in Kenya) and from Hollywood (Luke Perry). Life on earth is not only fragile but temporary and sometimes people die suddenly, without warning, way too soon.
But beyond being reminded of our mortality (and immortality!) Lent is a time to examine our souls, still in training, still growing or shrinking. The following quote from John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" was used to conclude a powerful op-ed piece in the New York Times last week about a current political situation. Our challenge, at least for this day, is to read it not as an observation about someone else, but a reflection on our own lives:
“Humans are caught — in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers
and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and
generosity too — in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we
have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and
vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric
of our last. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life,
will have left only the hard, clean questions: was it good or was it evil? Have
I done well — or ill.”
To this I would add Psalm 103 and 2nd Corinthians 5:20-6:10, readings appointed for Ash Wednesday, filled with good news worth feasting on this day of fasting. If you didn't get to a service today, you will be rewarded by reading these two passages.
John
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