This is often a theme with me on Ash Wednesday-- remembering that dust features prominently in aspects of both my faith and my fascination with astronomy.  Remembering that the universe "recycles," that the matter we are made of comes from the same place as that of stars and comets and galaxies.  "You are of dust, and to dust you shall return."

This tells us not only that we will one day become dust, but also that we have already been there.  As the poem says, as we feel awed by and tiny next to the vast wonders of the universe, we should recall that the stars are our siblings.  As we remember the humility of repentance, we should also remember that we are children of God.  Repent and rejoice!

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At church tonight, before the benediction, the pastor encouraged us to try to remember the meaning of the ashes-- impermanence and repentence-- and then, as we washed them off in water later, to recall baptism.  But I thought of it in a slightly different way.

The ashes remind us that we will not live forever, that "to dust you shall return."  Our Buddhist friends would approve (as would the band Kansas, and Bill and Tedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0czxSi53jI).  But I will also remember that the water washes the ashes away, of the impermanence of even this.  Even our reminder of death will, in the end, not remain.  All is truly transient.  "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning."

The tale goes that a king asked his wise men to create for him a ring that would make him happy when he was sad, and sad when he was happy.  They gave him a ring inscribed with, "this too shall pass."  And so will all things, from the briefest life of a microbe to the entire universe.  Our lives will end... but, so will our mortality, in God and faith.

So, maybe she and I are thinking of the same thing after all... in baptism, water washes away our sin... our death.  We will not live forever, but we also will not die forever.  Through the quiet and darkness of Lent, carry this light with you.