Comings and Goings

Accepting the temporary nature of life on earth

03/01/2017

O God, who desire not the death of the sinner, But their conversion, Mercifully hear our prayers, And in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes, Which we intend to receive upon our heads, That we, who acknowledge we are but ashes, And shall return to dust, May, through a steadfast observance of Lent, Gain pardon for sins and newness of life, After the likeness of your Risen Son. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

          Someone recently sent me this little bit of Ash Wednesday humor. A little boy went up to his mother and said, “Mom, is it true that we are all made from dust?” The mother looked at her boy and said, “Yes.” The boy then asked, “And is it true that when we die we will be returned to dust?” The mother looking a little puzzled, thought a minute and replied, “Yes, but why do you ask?” The little boy said, “Well mom, I’m not quite sure but under my bed there’s either someone coming or going.”

          Now, we may smile or laugh at the little boy’s naiveté, but he has stumbled onto two of the great mysteries of life: our birth and our death, our “coming” (into this world) and our “going” (out of this world). Last week one of our church staff members had a new baby – named Mariell Estella – and that same week we had the funeral of a 97 year old lady, Ann Sparks. “Someone is either coming or going” not only under the bed but also in this world.

          In his immortal Shakespearean soliloquy, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, contemplates life and death, too. His father, the King of Denmark, has been murdered and his father’s ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his untimely death. Hamlet opines: “To be or not to be – that is the question / Whether tis’ nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them…To die, to sleep - / To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause.” Like the little boy peeking under his bed to see someone coming and going in the form of dust, so Hamlet paused in his mind’s eye to contemplate the comings and goings of his father and his assassin. And whether Hamlet should speed up the assassin’s “going”! People’s comings and goings should give us pause.

          Every Ash Wednesday, the Church invites us to pause and to peek at people’s coming and goings by putting ashes – dust – on our foreheads. The prayer of blessing of ashes says, “We acknowledge we are ashes and shall return to dust.” In a few moments we come forward and a sacred minister will make a Cross of ashes on our forehead. They will say very solemnly: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Do you know who I find it especially hard to mark with those ashes? It’s little babies or toddlers, who are just starting the great adventure of their life. How paradoxical to tell a person whose life has hardly begun to pause and ponder how his or her life may end.

          And yet I believe the Church in her wisdom offers us a great grace in this moment. The Church whispers to us, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.” In other words, try to be like that little boy who peeked under his bed and saw someone either coming or going; indeed, we are all either coming or going. I’ll never forget the movie “Shawshank Redemption,” when Tim Robbins said: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” We’re always doing one or the other.  Even more pointedly, the Church asks us to see that we are the ones who are coming and going, that is, to meditate on our own mortality.

          And this grace grows increasingly urgent in our modern society that tempts us to think we will live forever, that earthly life is unending, that we will be perpetually young, that we will never face death. We have clothing stores called “Forever 21,” and we buy skin creams that are “age defying.” We want to shake our fist at the sky, and say adamantly, “I’m not either coming or going, I’m staying!” One day I asked an altar server before Mass if he thought my age was old (I’m 47). He could tell it sounded like a trick question, so he answered very politically: “Not really.” Then I asked him if he would ever be as old as me, and he immediately answered, “No way!” I smiled because when I was 12 years old I would have said the same thing. We desperately need the Church to remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return, because we want desperately to forget that. Please don’t hear me saying we should be morbid or morose, but only that we not bury our head in the sand. We may find that the sands are really in an hourglass and the sands of time are slowly slipping through our hands.

          In his “Meditation XVII” (my favorite), the English preacher and poet, John Donne wrote: “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” In many towns there is the tradition of tolling of church bells when someone dies. Have you heard those bells ringing? Donne is answering the little boy peeking under his bed, saying, “Don’t ask who’s coming and going under your bed, realize that you, too, are mingled in that dust. The bell tolls for thee, even if you like to shop at Forever 21.”

          Praised be Jesus Christ!