Brief though our lifespan may seem, we are also descendants of the Big Bang and carry the cosmos within ourselves. We are creatures of the moment, but we are also star dust and beauty. Perhaps, I realized that the problem in life is ecstasy deficiency, and the unhealthy ways we seek joy, and not the experience of joy and beauty. My self-denial in Lent was typically half-hearted and short-lived. For years, I struggled with Ash Wednesday Services precisely because of their otherworldliness and asceticism. Life is fragile, and we hope for spiritual wholeness, perhaps, everlasting life evolving in companionship with God and our loved ones. But, is salvation just an escape from this world of perpetual perishing or is it seeing everlasting beauty in each passing moment? Can we be “ citizens of heaven” while we are joyfully living here on earth? Can we simplify our lives in the Lenten spirit without abandoning the joy of life?
Yes, life is serious and risky business, and no one gets out alive. Faithful Christians trained their eyes on heaven, forsaking time for eternity.
It involved, the giving up of sensual pleasures as somehow impediments to experiencing God. The salvation promised and hoped for required turning our backs on the joys of embodiment and the beauties of the earth. For our parents in the faith, Lent was a morose and somber season in which they gave up something in order to prepare themselves for eternal life. Traditional Ash Wednesday liturgies focus on the brevity of life and remind worshippers that they came from dust and will soon enough return back to the earth, dust once more. In the wake of the pandemic, I don’t need anyone to remind me of the fragility and uncertainty of life.
These days I am daily aware of the dustiness of life in my own body and in the lives of dear friends.
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