Ash Wednesday 2009

Ash Wednesday is tomorrow. It has a particular theme which is one most people avoid, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

On September 11th, 2001, we all watched two airliners plunging into the Twin Towers. Much of the horror and fascination of the event lay in the viewers' realization that the lives of many thousands of people hung in the balance at that moment, and that a high proportion those had seen their last day on earth. We were all tremendously saddened, and also forced to contemplate the brevity and value of life.

“Teach us to number our days rightly, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” - Psalm 90:12

As a result of that terrible scene, suddenly more Americans started participating in organized (as distinct from disorganized) religion. Churches experienced a noticeable uptick in attendance. But, as may be expected, over time people drifted away from what was, at best, a temporary phenomenon.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that as time moves forward energy is inexorably less available and that therefore the overall tendency of everything in the material world is to run down and fall apart. The natural world is subject to "a bondage of decay" which St. Paul pointed to Romans 8:18-25. And, as anyone who owns a computer will tell you, the information content of systems also decays over time. In order to bring order out of increasing chaos further energy and programming information must somehow be supplied. So, if you have a laptop, for example, you need to recharge the batteries from time to time, and also get the software fixed.

If I may continue my metaphor, Ash Wednesday and Lent are an injection of energy and programming information into your increasingly entropic spiritual life. It happens every year on a regular cycle so that each of us has an opportunity to enter into the Lenten re-energizing and reorganizing process together. Group efforts are generally more helpful because we have the chance to encourage each other. The Holy Spirit supplies the spiritual energy, and the accumulated wisdom of the 3000+ year old Judaeo-Christian tradition gives us a fix for our spiritual software. The energy which is supplied depends on your willingness to enter into the process, as is the organizing context, the process of Lent itself.

The current economic downturn, some say, could have been avoided. The current Prime Minister of Great Britain claimed, at one time, to have made financial crashes like this impossible. Such assertions run counter to the general principle of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, just as the idea that you and I are not ever going to need regular injections of energy and organization in or spiritual lives is obviously untrue. Even cars need tuneups!

God exists outside of time, as well as participates in time. Only the Divine is not subject to decay and dissolution. St. Paul writes in his Letter to Timothy, “...godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen.”

“Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.” - Psalm 39:4 “Man's days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.” - Job 14:5

The preceding two quotes from Job and the Psalms weren't put in there as warnings or threats, they're encouraging wakeup calls for all of us. Will we heed them, or will we just keep sleep-walking toward oblivion?