3/3/2022

3/3/2022

Dear Friends in Christ,

In my Ash Wednesday sermon yesterday, I quoted a line from Jane Richardson’s poem about Ash Wednesday, Blessing the Dust. I thought I would offer it in its wholeness for this week’s reflection as we enter the holy season of Lent. Scientists believe that everything in the universe, our world and even our very selves, is created from the elements released when a supernova star explodes. We are literally made of stardust., which Jan Richardson references at the end of this poem. Maybe next year I will impose ashes with the word, “Remember you are stardust, and to stardust you will return!”

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Jane+

Blessing the Dust For Ash Wednesday

All those days you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered to the four corners

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial -

Did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred death.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame. Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world

is made,

and the stars that blaze

in our bones,

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

“Blessing the Dust” appears in Jan’s new book Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons