ashes and the desert
Lent.
It’s here, we have begun.
What was going through His mind; day three in that desert? Had the questions, the offers, begun? Or was it yet all heat and hunger and a wondering as to purpose and end? He found himself in that barren solitude by choice, yet…not of His own. Hour upon hour, day upon day; fasting, weakening, presented with every choice desire, dialoguing with Enlightened Darkness while quoting His own Self and Head.
And He submitted to it, completed it, returned from it.
And we remember. And participate.
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On Wednesday we were able to join our Gathering in recognition of The Ashes. The man administering the ashes paused a moment, almost startled, as I presented the Tiny One, only nine days old, to receive the mark upon his perfectly unsoiled forehead. “The baby too?” he asked. I nodded. “From dust you came, to dust you shall return…”. Not a sacrament, nothing magic, simply a symbol, a reminder, an act of participation. A smudge of burnt palms marred his perfection and revealed the inner truth. For even in his innocence, even in his newborn dew-skinned bloom, we invited the babe and challenged ourselves to step into the Story and consider. Consider the desert. Consider the pain and the temptation and the response. Consider the one who returned after forty days and went on to triumph and darkness and, finally, perfect victory.
–
We find ourselves in the stark season of Lent, but oh how blessed we are that we already know the coming celebration, the feast, the triumph. The ashes will be cleansed by that thorn-induced wash, and we will continue to participate in Light and Water and forever rejoicing.
Thanks be to God!
Beautiful, Dea — thanks.