Communication

In the News

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.
Elizabeth Kaeton

Some of you know this child's song. It sounds so innocent, at first blush. "Ring around a rosey/pocket full of poesy/ashes/ashes/we all fall down" I don't know if you know the origin of this song, but a quick search on "Google" gives me confidence to say with some certainty, if not blatant authority, that the following is so.

This is a nursery rhyme about the bubonic plague known as the Black Death. "Ring around a rosey" refers to a pinkish circle that would form on a victim's body prior to turning black. Medical thought at the time was that flowers or posies would purify the air of its bad humors. "Ashes, ashes" refers to burning those things that belonged to a person that had died of the plague. "We all fall down" relates to what most folk experienced if they fell victim to the bubonic plague - death.

Interesting, isn't it, how children have a way of cutting through the niceties and getting through the truth of things? I'm especially struck by the last phrase of that innocent-sounding ditty: "Ashes, ashes, we all fall down."

Lent begins with Ash Wednesday - the time when we wear ashes in the sign of a cross on our forehead as a sign of our mortality. Ashes, in antiquity, were a sign of grief, mourning, humiliation and penitence. When Job loses everything, he sits among the ashes. Cursed and overrun by enemies, the Psalmist "eats ashes like bread, and mingles tears with drink." Ashes are what are left after destruction. After chaos or catastrophe, ashes are what remain. After the bombings on 9/11, ashes were everywhere.

The columbarium in our church yard attests to the fact that ashes are all that remain of our mortal beings after death. It is humbling, if not absolutely daunting, every time I receive a box of the cremains of a person I once loved and cherished to know that person now to be reduced to a container of ashes which I hold in my hands. I confess that this thought crosses my mind, "So, in the end, it comes down to this: We are all reduced to the cruel truth of a children's nursery rhyme, born of the attempt to deal with the horror of the chaos and catastrophe of the Black Plague. 'Ashes, ashes, we all fall down'"

The forty days and nights of Lent call us to the daily task of considering our mortality. Indeed, we all fall down. There is an even shorter view. The phrase, "we all fall down" calls us not only to consider the limits of our mortality, but also to ponder the confines of our humanity. Lent is a time to take into account how it is that 'we all fall down' on our baptismal promises; on the values and principles we say we hold dear; on the authenticity and integrity of our true selves.

I bid you, in this Holy Season of Lent, to consider the wisdom you once knew as a child. I bid you to contemplate the limits of your own mortality, and reflect not only on your sins and shortcomings, but, also, on the worth of your life. Consider what you want to do with whatever span of years remain in your life. How is it that you will make the gift of your life count?

What is it you want said of what you have done with your life? What is the legacy you want to leave your family? Your children? Your grandchildren? Your great-grandchildren? Your community? Your church?

Lent is not so much about gloom and doom as it is about exploring what it is in our lives that we have banished to the shadows. Lent is about exploring the shades of gray in our lives, facing into our own short comings, sifting through the ashes, weighing what it is that is of value in our lives and choosing to live a life of integrity and authenticity - no matter the cost.

Lent is not a season to be merely tolerated. It is an opportunity to learn how it is that God is present in the brokenness of our lives, making us whole. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Lent is about the wholeness and holiness of life. It's about learning to cut through the niceties and get through to the truth of things.

Mostly, Lent is about is about rediscovering what we once knew as children: Life's not about waiting for the storm to pass; life is about learning to dance in the rain.