Usually the dust and ashes of Ash Wednesday are a sober reminder of the end of our bodily lives, a physical sign of the ephemeral quality of so many things that we set our hearts on. The ashes provoke a meditation on the end of all earthly things and the supremacy of the spirit.
On Lucy, they brought other thoughts. Not being so far from her beginning, the ashes served a hope and a promise. (She told me all of this with her eyes.) If out of mere ash and dust something as incredible as a human person can come to be, what can we not hope for from Our Maker? Ps. 139 esp vs 14. There is power in beginnings so small, glory in a Creator so mighty and good. Amen. Hurray for this Lenten Spring to open us more completely to His Goodness.
