Image: Ash Wednesday Cross © Jan Richardson
Readings for Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17;
2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
We are entering the season that begins with a smudge. That smudge is a testimony to what survives. It is a witness to what abides when everything seems lost. It is a sign that what we know and love may, for a time, be reduced to dust, but it does not disappear. We belong to the God who well knows what to do with dust, who sees the dust as a place to dream anew, who creates from it again and again.
—Jan Richardson, from Ash Wednesday: What God Can Do with Dust
The Painted Prayerbook, February 2018
Friends, as we enter into Lent, I want to share this Ash Wednesday blessing again. It’s been six years since I first wrote it, during what would turn out to be my last Lent with Gary. I have found that the question the blessing holds—”Did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?”—is a good one to ask myself anew each time Ash Wednesday comes around. And I can say now: I know what God can do with dust. And I am learning still.
As this season begins, what blessing do you need to claim from the ashes?
Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
Using Jan’s artwork
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Using Jan’s words
For worship services and related settings, you are welcome to use Jan’s blessings or other words from this blog without requesting permission. All that’s needed is to acknowledge the source. Please include this info in a credit line: “© Jan Richardson. janrichardson.com.” For other uses, visit Copyright Permissions.
March 6, 2019 at 1:25 PM |
What a joy to see your name in my inbox. And what a blessing to read your ‘Blessing the dust’. In grateful communion, Maura
March 6, 2019 at 1:53 PM |
Just this morning I picked up my Circle of Grace book and was absolutely transformed into a new way of seeing by Blessing the Dust. Right away I copied it in an email to a minister who I am later joining in a labyrinth Ash Wednesday ceremony. Passing your original blessing along…what a precious gift as the blessing came back to me in your email just now as I opened and read it. Thank you!
March 6, 2019 at 1:54 PM |
So grateful to receive this Ash Wednesday post & know the lenten journey has begun
March 6, 2019 at 5:02 PM |
I was hoping that I would find your first message of this season in my email. Your thoughts, message and art never fail to take me to another place in my spiritual journey!
March 6, 2019 at 5:28 PM |
Holy allegory. Thank you.
March 6, 2019 at 5:43 PM |
Thank you for the powerful image and poem. They both speak truth and inspire hope. I will quietly share this poem with our parish nurse who works with those who grieve and with care-givers for family members who suffer from dementia.
March 7, 2019 at 9:19 PM |
Thank you for reposting Blessing the Dust. Two years ago, at the beginning of Lent, I had just had surgery and been diagnosed with breast cancer. Between surgery and starting chemo treatment, I traveled from Mexico to Austria to a retreat with dear mission co-workers. We are all member care facilitators but once a year we retreat together to care for one another. I shared Blessing the Dust and the Grace that Scorches Us, and we sat together meditating on your blessings, lamenting, crying for the battles we live, yet rejoicing and claiming what God can do within the dust and dirt of it.
March 9, 2019 at 9:03 PM |
Thank you.