A year ago we packed up our hallelujahs, extinguished the candles, unfurled our penitent purple, and with the sign of the cross were reminded that from dust we come and to dust we shall return. None of us could have imagined, as we come around to another season of Lent, how much none of that was a metaphor or an act of remembrance, but rather a foreshadowing of the year to come. More than 2.2 million people have died across the globe, more than 100 million have been infected, nearly 500,000 people in our own country have lost their lives to this horrible disease. Things we were sure we knew, we don’t know anymore; things we were sure we couldn’t do before are our new normal; going back to how things used to be is simply not an option. And yet here we are, staring down another Ash Wednesday, another Lenten journey.

I can’t face my own mortality anymore. I’m reminded of it every time I walk out the door and think, “wallet, keys, phone, mask.” I’m reminded of it every time I curl up in front of my computer in slippers for worship. I’m particularly aware of my mortality when I think about how long it’s been since I’ve been in my parent’s home or hugged a friend or gotten on an airplane. I’m cognizant of my mortality every time someone says, even nonchalantly, “We’re quarantining” --- language that would have meant practically nothing to me a year ago.

All the same, I’m entering this Lenten season with a glimmer of hope layered on top of my grief. I’m entering this Lent reminded that while we typically treat Lent as a march toward the cross and a march toward Friday, it is in fact also a journey toward Sunday and the empty tomb. And more than anything I’m reminded of the ways ashes are a source of life for a creation groaning in pain.

Ashes are a sign of death and destruction, they also offer signs of hope and rebirth. We enhance the soil of our gardens by adding ashes; after a fire new life bursts from the ground, out of the seeming desolation that scarred a landscape.

This Lent I invite you to join me in a journey to remember that our God is a Creator God, even and especially on the days when that feels impossible. This Lent I invite you to join me in a journey in which instead of reminding one another of our mortality we remind ourselves of the possibility of new life springing forth. I invite you, in whatever way your community has chosen, to mark this Ash Wednesday by saying “From dust were you born…” and then maybe this year, leave the death part unspoken--we already feel it deep enough in our spirits.

Throughout Lent I will offer reflections on the assertion “From dust were you born…” on the Presbytery’s Facebook page. There will be opportunities for personal prayer, liturgy based on the Revised Common Lectionary to use in your worship services, and other forms of art to help along your journey. We do not know when this particular Lenten journey of Covidtide will end, but just as the resurrection comes every year, so too will it this year-- it always does.

Blessings on your Lenten journey.

You can reach Libby by email at libby@pbty.com