Ash Wednesday: Beginning again

And so it begins.  The holy season of Lent.

On Ash Wednesday, all day long, I will place ashes in the sign of the cross on people's foreheads, and say the words: Remember that you are dust.  To dust you shall return.

This may be the most spiritually and emotionally exhausting day of my year.  All day long, with people whom I love dearly, together we will remember that we will all die.  

It feels as if I am doing 200 or so little burial services today.

Today I recall the foreheads, those I have smudged with ashes on past Ash Wednesdays, of people I love who are now resurrected from the dust.

Dick.  Jamie.  Pat.  Andy.  Bill.  Mark.  George+.  Lin.  Marilyn.  So many more.

I will walk these forty days of Lent with the words of St. Benedict in my heart: 

Keep death ever before me.  

And 

Always.  We begin again.

With generosity.  Reflecting on and tweaking my spiritual practices in order that I will be able to live more fully the days that God has given me.   

Where will God lead these forty days?