All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day.

Then you will return to the ground from which you came.

For you were made from dust, and to the dust you will return.  Genesis 3:19 

On this day we take the ashes from old burnt palms and smear them across                                                                                  foreheads of young and old, elegant and haggard, rich and poor.

We do  so in sacred spaces, crowded places, intersections, and all kinds of                                                                          places.  So that we dare not forget our place. We are dust.

This is the beginning of Lent ~ a journey of 47 days taking us all the way to Easter.

"New beginnings invariably come from old false things that are allowed to die" ~ Richard Rohr

O, Creator of heaven and earth,  in our toil, meet us. By the ash worn mark us as recipients of your mercy. Amen.