Where is my place?
At the end of last year, I went to the Benedictine Monastery for my spiritual retreat for praying and checking my own interior life. Years ago, I was talking with a monk who is and has been for many years my therapist, counselor, mentor, and teacher. I told the brother that I worked really hard to always get it right, to have the answer, to always know what to do, to speak the right words, to be strong and in control, to do the right thing, to make the best choices, to accomplish everything I set out do to and to accomplish them with perfection. Then, I confessed to him, “It’s not working. I can’t hold it all together. Things aren’t turning out like I planned and intended.” On and on I went describing the expectations I had for myself. When he kept listening and abruptly bursting into laughter and finally stopped his laughing and said: “Well, welcome to the real world. Who do you think you are? Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
And then he shared his own life experiences and how he ended up to the monastery. He was a kind of CEO of big chemical company. At his age of 48, long lasting and happy marriage abruptly ended and his two daughters grew up and moved away from him. He began to question to himself: “Where is my place in life?” Through the disappointments in his marriage, the success of his career, the pain of his losses, the changes and chances of life, the fear of the unknown, he began to ask, “
Where is my place in life
?” He finally found
in that secret place of monastery, he finally remembered that that his life begins and ends in God and began to open him to receive the life of God offered.
Ash Wednesday makes us face a reality we tend to deny. Ash Wednesday interrupts the cycle of forgetfulness. It declares that enough is enough. There is another way. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Receiving the ashes is declaring that my heart is broken open, my defenses crumble, and my list of expectations, intentions, and plans no longer control or determine my life. Now we are returning to God and starting a new beginning with God. Ash Wednesday is coming again this year. Come and start your brand-new life with God by receiving the ashes on your forehead, not as God’s threat or punishment but as God’s love and desire for us, and the promise of resurrected life. By receiving ashes, we will find our place in life.
Get Refreshed at the Ash Wednesday Service
February 26
6, 2020, 7:00 p.m.
