Another Ash Wednesday, Very Young

Around midday today, Pastor John reminded me that I was dust and to that dust I would return. Then my friend dipped his fingers in ashes and made the sign of the Cross on my forehead.

It was another Ash Wednesday, another chance for reflection, the beginning of another trip from winter to spring, through Lent to Easter.

When I returned to my pew an old Cat Stevens song popped into my head:

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time?
You're only dancing on this earth
For a short while
And though your dreams may toss
And turn you now.
They will vanish away
Like your Daddy's best jeans
Denim blue, fading up to the sky
And though you want him to last forever
You know he never will
And the patches
Make the goodbye harder still.

It seems like I have been acutely aware of mortality and impermanence since I was very young. Like the song says, I want to last forever -- I want the people and things I love to do the same -- but I know that's not the natural order of things. Most days I can put this aside, but not today. Ash Wednesday demands that such thoughts be brought back to the front of my mind. I guess I wasn't surprised when I returned to work and felt a heaviness greater than the usual somberness that accompanies a winter day.