Remember
Remember. A sense of mortality is a bit of truth. To remember is healthy, even lifesaving. One night just over three years ago a beautiful, gifted and promising young man lost control of his pickup truck, crashed, was thrown out and killed. I suspect he was driving distracted, loving life but unmindful of his mortality. Some months ago five teenage girls were killed in a car wreck, the driver was thought to have been texting. The younger we are the less we may remember our mortality, danger is meaningless, life is endless. But it isn’t. We are dust.
For the sensible, that changes with age doesn’t it, with age and illness. With age and illness we become aware of our dusty nature. The week we arrived in Apalachicola late July 1984 I looked at a list of the previous priests and became mindful that I was only one in an long ongoing line and soon enough would be part of Trinity Church history. In my vocation I have officiated many Services of Christian Burial, and have always known that my time would come; but I never took that seriously, death was something that happened to others and my calling was to help family, conduct the funeral, be in charge. Until -- as friends know -
-- until last October leaving BayMed with a grim prognosis, Genesis 3:19b became real and personal. Never again will death be something that happens to others and I’m in charge of arrangements! Deterioration through November December January was such that Linda and I doubted I would make it to Cleveland or survive surgery. I asked Joe to come to Cleveland to be with his mother just in case. Not morbid, simply truth remembered together, the Lord God’s final words to Adam in the Garden of Eden, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Almighty God, you have created us out of the dust of the
earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our
mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is
only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
earth: Grant that these ashes may be to us a sign of our
mortality and penitence, that we may remember that it is
only by your gracious gift that we are given everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
The ashes are imposed with the following words
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
As the priest marks your forehead with ashes today
be mindful -- you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Life is a gift, and every day is beautiful.
Remember ...
TW+