“Why does Will have dirt on his forehead?”
You may recognize Ash Wednesday as the annual occasion where some coworkers show up to the office with schmutz on their face. It’s fair to ask yourself, “what in the world are they doing that for?” Imagine someone showing up to work in July with lipstick on their forehead. Wouldn’t it be quite odd?
Ash Wednesday is odd. And that’s because we must halt the autonomy of our daily lives to heed its message. These words from Genesis 3:16 help us understand,
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
“dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”. A lovely way to juxtapose our insignificance in comparison to God. It’s a bit sobering, but a valuable wake-up-call if you heed the message.
We are spiritual beings having a finite human experience. When you think about it, being a human is incredible. Take a moment to ponder the breadth of scents you can smell, sounds you can hear, emotions you can feel, sights you can see and memories you can make. Whether you are spiritual or not, this human experience we all share is quite remarkable! Yet, we disintegrate into dust the same way plants and other animals do at the end of their life cycle.
Understanding we die one day is a tough fact to cope with. But it doesn’t have to negatively affect our human experience (although, it certainly halts it). An acceptance of the fact that “dust thou shalt return” liberates us in a way. It wakes us up from the monotony of daily life and empowers us to do more with the moments we have.
Here are the lessons we can all take from Ash Wednesday:
Make the most of your finite human experience by doing more for others and yourself
Take care of yourself to extend the duration of your human experience
Don’t sweat the small stuff