Random Thoughts for Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday may be the least appreciated day on the liturgical calendar.  Certainly among mainline Protestants.  For the most part I don't think it even shows up on most evangelical Protestant calendars.  But this year, perhaps more than any other in recent memory, it seems so relevant.  Maybe because in one corner of my office there are currently three containers of ashes--human ashes--waiting to be scattered in our Memorial Grounds when it is once again safe for families to travel.

Most of my Committal and Memorial Services these days focus around ashes and not a body.   That's largely due to this being Florida, and while burials are possible, they aren't always very practical.  That and the fact that my congregation is largely made up of people who come from somewhere else, and if they are to be interred up north ashes are far easier to transport.

Here it's not uncommon for ashes to be divided.  Some scattered here, some buried in a family plot in Illinois or Michigan or Massachusetts.  How reflective of our mobile society!  

Some one near and dear to me once said they wanted to be cremated so that if there really was bodily resurrection God could really show off his/her stuff. 

Granted, the ashes of Ash Wednesday are different.  The come from the previous year's Palm Sunday palms being burned to a fine dust.  Still, I can't help but think of the connections.  And, like all of us I imagine, I hope that out of the ashes of this time of pandemic and economic crisis and societal unrest, we will rise to a new way of living.

(You may wish to join us online at www.sanibelucc.org for our streamed Ash Wednesday Service, February 17 at 7:00 PM)