Ash Wednesday
Today is Ash Wednesday. Today we receive the imposition of ashes on our foreheads to remind us both that we are sinners in need of repentance and that we are but dust and to dust we shall return. To aid in your reflections this day, I share with you my poem from my book, Liturgical Entanglements, “Ash Wednesday”. I pray it may serve as a prayer for you this day.
“Ash Wednesday”
The love that moves the sun and other stars
Now moves me to my end and to my death.
It moves my lungs to take their final breath.
Fasting, weeping, mourning, sighing are
Not able to do me good. Just like Macbeth,
My sins are my undoing. There is nothing left,
No prayer to save my soul, to remove these scars.
But then, the ashes touch my head, and I
Am brought to life. I can return with heart
Made clean by the joy of the Lord born in a stall,
Whose unending love makes sin and darkness die.
But I must repent, give myself, every part.
For God will have me whole, or not at all.
