I attended Ash Wednesday service this week. The beginning of the season of Lent. It was somber, subdued, and much of it conducted in silence. It is my favorite church service of the year, which I guess makes me sound a bit morbid. But I have my reasons.

This is the one worship experience of the year in which awareness is the primary goal. Nothing is taught, nothing promoted, no one is encouraged to feel one way or the other.

ash wednesday 2017The whole experience is based on a simple truth. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return.” Life is impermanent, and the ashes that are put on the forehead remind us of this vital truth.

Everything is constantly evolving, dying and renewing. The seasons change; winter to spring, spring to summer, summer yields to fall, fall becomes winter once again. We move from childhood to adolescence, to young adulthood and then to our senior years. Each transition involves losing, leaving behind some things that have been necessary for that time. Eventually, ultimately, and often unpredictably, we die.

We can struggle against our awareness of impermanence, we can deny it, we can forget that it is a part of the natural order. But when we do, we lose something vital.

When we love someone, nothing intensifies the preciousness of the relationship more than recognizing its impermanence. The thought of losing that person reminds us how vital that person is in our lives. Without the awareness that time is brief, we tend to take each other and our own lives for granted.

It is the fleeting nature of a thrilling moment that makes the memory of that moment all the sweeter.

Ash Wednesday service is the opportunity to stop struggling against or denying our impermanence. Instead we embrace it. We even celebrate it. None of us knows if we will be around for Ash Wednesday next year. That makes it all the more important and sobering that we pay attention to our impermanent moments together. We will all return to dust. In the meantime, let us love deeply and live gratefully.