Looking at the World Through Ashes

Memorial Cross, Univ of South, Sewanee TN

Ashes to Ashes Today, this Wednesday 

This picture of the Sewanee cross says it all to me for Ash Weds 2013.  Normally, you drive up on a crystal clear day and can see for miles.  You look through the cross to the valley below.  The cross casts a shadow that marks the world--this is God's creation.  But on Ash Weds, ours is a different vision altogether--of our mortality, of the way ahead uncertain as a fog clouding our vision. 

There is this essential mystery.  The more we claim our place as the creation which is mortal, the more we see the Creator which is eternal.  When we claim our place, we find our place in relationship to God.

I love to tell the story of beloved Drummond. When I heard the story, I knew it had to be him, the real thing.  It was Ash Weds, he was in the hospital and knew he was dying.  He did not request the Communion, often brought to the sick, nor did he ask for Last Rites.  The story I hear is that he asked for ashes.  Could it be that he saw the world through ashes, his mortality in the new  Light of the Creator?  Funny twist, that ashes would open our eyes to see our real nature and who we truly are in the Light of God. 

Sewanee Cross at Sunrise