“From stardust, we were made,
and to dust, we shall return” –
the litany echoes throughout
the wooden beams holding up
the roof over our heads
that my eyes survey
as the minister smears cold, slimy, holiness
across my forehead.
on the last “normal” day that I remember,
in those days when the idea of “wandering” and “sacrifice”
were still only liturgical sentiments to me,
and not our communal reality.
The oily ash which clings to the skin
of my forehead
glistens as I bow in the light
and I am
touched by a spark of that
deeply mysterious, stardust-charged magic
that keeps hearts beating and
lures people together for gatherings.
The ash clings to me like I will learn, this lent,
to cling to grace.
I cling to grace when my stepping and trodding
are disrupted by crisis and hope,
and when calamity collides with mercy.
In the sanctuary, I feel the cross upon my forehead,
though I cannot see it –
I feel it like I feel
the subtle awareness of the fact that
no one is ever, truly, isolated.
But God,
I am angry
because I cannot breathe and
I cannot breathe
because I keep
holding my breath,
waiting for Sunday.
But God, my pallet is dry and
I thirst.
How do I worship
when I choke on
so many of the words I used
to be used
to using.
I try and push the phrases out,
straining to roll them off the desert sand
that is my tongue,
but they barely escape in a whisper.
When “hallelujah”
was attached to
comfort and routine and
knowing what I would be doing
next week, next month,
those “hallelujahs”
welled up and spoke out from me
almost as easily and
as mindlessly as my own name.
Maybe I thought I was clinging to you, God,
when all along, I was clinging to
my own sense of control.
I was clinging to my individuality.
That oily ash, clinging to me,
is a reminder.
It is reminding me that,
right down to my every pore,
the Divine is clinging to me.
The Divine is clinging to every
single
one
of
us.
To be clung to by the Divine is to
be within a jar of overflowing oil
it is to be within –
and to be accountable to –
a deeply interconnected human community.
Holiness is as close-by
as dust.
The reminder of where all life began,
and will eventually return.
Ritual can be as commonplace
as oil.
Thirst for it as I may,
I do not have to work hard
to find it.
Divinity clings to me
in my every moment –
just waiting for me
to dip into it and
spread it upon the most
overlooked places.
Will I emerge from Lent
with ears tuned to hear
the voices of those in this world whose voices proclaim,
“I thirst”,
over and above my own
too monotonous, oft-thoughtless
hallelujahs?
august laperche 