Over my lifetime, Good Friday has come to mean to me the piercing, bleeding, sobbing realization that we are (I am) incapable of (and even, at times, flaunting of) the life of peace, beauty, love, and harmony that we (I) say we (I) want in better and higher moments. We are broken and cannot put the pieces back together again. We have given in to hopelessness and accepted the status quo.

Over my lifetime, Good Friday has come to mean to me the promise of rich, red rivulets oozing from a thorn pierced scalp, snaking their way over pain creased forehead, filling a brow to overflowing, before spattering on the freshly disturbed sand below, each droplet asking me {us} to let the truth sink in that this is love: unstoppable, freely given, all-powerful love …. Given and shed for you (me). 

Over my lifetime, I have begun to come to the understanding that Good Friday is an invitation to love and forgiveness, for me, and for you, for every friend and foe, for those who drove the spikes home on that dark day, and for all those whose broken, hurtful lives are laid out before us in the news each day.

Thank you, lovely, bleeding, dripping, pouring, Jesus. May your unyielding, freeing love help us to begin to pick up the pieces, to live with ourselves, to live better and more hopefully with those we love, and to begin helping to put some of the broken pieces of this fractured world together again.

The Smudge

Those of us who are pastors, are about to encounter one of the most gripping moments of the year: Ash Wednesday, the day of the smudge. 

It seems simple enough. Take last year's palms from Palm Sunday. Burn them. Sift them so
that only the black powdered ash is left. Invite the people to come and kneel before the altar. 

As they kneel, dip your thumb in the ashes, put your thumb to the kneeling person's forehead, make the sign of the cross, and say the simple words "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Simple, yes, but profoundly gripping. 

I ponder all the foreheads my thumb has traced. Some are smooth and young and fresh, wondrous examples of God's creative powers. Some are wrinkled with deep furrows: evidence of worries and struggles, past and present, and exposure to harsh elements in the world around us. Sometimes the thumb passes over skin as soft as cashmere; sometimes it bounces roughly over furrows like a car going over uneven railroad tracks.

But all of these foreheads came from the same source and all are destined for the same transformation. They all came from dust. They all will return to the dust.

Sometimes an infant is brought in mother's arms, a child who last Ash Wednesday was literally dust, but now the dust is transformed into tiny fingers, eyes, and lips: God has brought the dust to life. It is hard for a pastor not to feel God looking over his shoulder, and God whispering in his ear as the thumb reaches out to make the smudge: "Pastor, do you see the miracle before you? Do you see what I have done with the dust? Have you shared the joy of this miracle with your people?"

Sometimes, one stricken with cancer or heart disease, comes and kneels with a knowing expression upon their face, knowing full well that the time is near for their body to return to the dust, to become again like that smudge on their forehead. No words need to be spoken between pastor and parishioner, but both know the meaning of the smudge.

Sometimes, one who has stood at the grave of a mother or father, comes and kneels with all of the questions, uncertainties and hopes that death brings. Sometimes the smudge helps that person connect again with their loved one, to hold their dustiness in common, to acknowledge the truth about dust, and to hold on to the promise for dusty people beyond this life.

We are people who should never go too far afield from the smudge. We should never get so far away from it that we can no longer see the smudge. We should never lose our reference point of from where we came nor to where we are going. People who know they are dust know that it took a miracle for dust to be filled with life. People who realize that only God could make life out of dust know that if God made life out of dust once, God can do it again. God knows the secret. God knows the recipe. When we have returned again to dust,

God knows what to do with our dust. We won't be just a smudge. We will have life!