we are but dust

I've always loved Ash Wednesday. I think when I was little it was mostly because after getting up early to go to church before school, our reward was McDonald's breakfast...very exciting in a generally healthy household [Sidenote: my whole family snacks solely on food that you eat during track meets: carrots, pretzels, trail mix, celery and peanut butter...and I never realized this (or thought it was weird) till I moved away]. But now I love the feeling that surrounds this day...there's such a sense of community involved. This is obviously aided by the fact that a large number of people in your everyday life have ash smudged on their foreheads (my priest today did not have very dainty thumbs). But it's more about the feeling that everyone is in this challenge together...hopefully, this Lenten season will be a joyful learning experience - though it will undoubtedly be filled with times of doubt and even despair as well. But we're all in this together, and that's important to remember even after the ashes are gone.

[And from the English major in me, here's the sixth section of T.S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday (the whole poem can be found here)]:

VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.