#125 - Ash Wednesday: Mortality, Mercy, And Meaning {Reflections}

Start with the words none of us want to hear: you are going to die. Now feel what happens next—attention sharpens, breath slows, the moment grows weighty and bright. That’s the doorway Ash Wednesday opens, and we walk through it together to find a paradoxical gift: when we face our limits, we gain our life back.

We explore the deep meaning of ashes—the cross traced with dust and oil, the voice that names our beginning and our end—and why this ancient ritual still speaks with power. Ryan shares his first Ash Wednesday experience and how a quiet line from Thich Nhat Hanh’s How to Sit reframed prayer as simple presence: sit, stop, breathe. From there we unpack Lent as a season of stopping and looking deeply, a countercultural practice that interrupts hurry and brings us home to God, ourselves, and our neighbors.

Two messages anchor the conversation. First, remember you are dust: mortality humbles our egos and clarifies purpose, inviting us to love widely, build beauty, and live fully while we can. Second, return: repentance is not shame but a turn toward wholeness, an honest naming of how we’ve wandered and a step back onto the path of shalom. Along the way, we offer practical ways to practice presence—daily stillness, examen, fasting from distraction, small acts of repair—so the season becomes a lived rhythm, not a vague intention.

If this reflection stirs you, share it with someone who needs a gentler pace and a truer hope. Subscribe for more reflections, leave a review to help others find the show, and tell us: which message meets you today—dust or return?

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Chapters

• 0:16 Welcome And Ash Wednesday Frame
• 0:57 What Ash Wednesday Marks
• 1:27 How To Sit And Be Still
• 3:20 Lent As Stopping And Looking Deeply
• 3:30 First Ash Wednesday Experience
• 5:15 Dust, Mortality, And Perspective
• 6:09 Live Fully While You Can
• 7:36 Wandering Off The Path
• 9:26 Two Messages To Carry Forward
• 9:44 Closing And Invitations

Transcript

Welcome And Ash Wednesday Frame

What Ash Wednesday Marks

How To Sit And Be Still

Lent As Stopping And Looking Deeply

First Ash Wednesday Experience

Dust, Mortality, And Perspective

Live Fully While You Can

Wandering Off The Path

Two Messages To Carry Forward

Closing And Invitations

SPEAKER_00 0:15

What is up everybody? Hey, this is Ryan, and welcome to our Reflections podcast. And hey, if you're listening to this on the day it was released, today is Ash Wednesday. And so I'm always at a loss for what to say on this day. Like, do you say, hey, happy Ash Wednesday? Happy the day that you're told you're gonna die. Or from dust you came into dust you'll return. No big deal. But uh honestly, Ash Wednesday is one of my it's actually one of my favorite Christian sort of historical holidays that's in the calendar. It really is. I I love it. And here's why. To tell you why, I want to tell you about this book I found in Boulder, Colorado, and then my first Ash Wednesday story, and then kind of the two messages in Ash Wednesday that I that I absolutely love. But so here's the kind of the history of Ash Wednesday. So Ash Wednesday is this Christian tradition that that goes way back in which you come on this day. It's actually the beginning of the 40 days leading up to Easter, not including the Sundays. And it's a time of like repentance and reflection and recognizing your own mortality and uh to sort of prepare your hearts for Easter and the resurrection of Jesus, this new life. And so sometimes Ashwin's Day has like this somber, more sullen kind of, I don't know, vibe to it. But I love it. And here's why. I actually I I found this book a couple of weeks ago. I was in Boulder, Colorado, and I saw this book, and I had to get it. The book is called How to Sit by this author named TikNot Han. And the book is just basically like this this book of like several short reflections on how to be still, how to sit, how to breathe, how to be present. And these are all things, if you know me, that are like super helpful for me because my mind and often my body is going a million miles an hour. And I'm like, how to sit? I love it. Because I often I don't know how to just sit and be still. And so many times in scripture, the Bible says, like, hey, be still, know that I'm God. Or Jesus will sit and pray. Uh, and and sometimes for hours. I'm like, man, how do you do that? Like, I want to do that more. And so, like the last decade or so of my life, I've really worked to kind of slow down my tempo and my life. And so I got this book, and I love it. And the opening sort of reflection is like, hey, sit down anywhere. Here's how you sit. This is how he he opens it. Sit down and stop doing whatever it is that you're doing, which I love. Like, don't do anything. And then simply recognize your breath, like breathe in. Like, oh, I'm breathing in now. And then breathe out. Like, oh, yeah, I'm breathing out now. And then go from there. And then one of the other reflections says this about you know, the word they use is meditation. If that word bothers you, you can think about like centering prayer or reflection or just bringing your mind into like the present moment. But the author says this about meditation. He says, Meditation is simply the practice of stopping and looking deeply. And he goes on to say, in order to look deeply, you need to make the time to stop everything and see what is there. Yeah, meditation is simply stopping and looking deeply. I think prayer is kind of the same way. Stopping and looking deeply. In order to look deeply, you need to make time to stop everything and to see what is there. That's Lent. That's that's the season going into Easter, and it begins on Ash Wednesday. This time we're gonna stop and look deeply and see what is there. The first time I ever did an Ash Wednesday was here at Central, and we're in the Lutheran stream here at Central, and I came out of an evangelical mega church background where we did not do a lot of this kind of stuff. And I love the church church I grew up in. It was very, very uh engaging, but the theology and kind of the mystical part of it was kind of absent and lacking. So I came here, and the first night we did Ash Wednesday, you know, you walked forward, there's music playing, and the pastor or one of the other people, uh, could be a lay person or a staff person, they rub ashes on your forehead in the shape of a cross. And they all they say is, From dust you came, and to dust you should you shall return. And I walked forward, it was I was quiet, I was like the whole service is kind of slower, uh, it's a bit more solemn. And then this pastor, his name was Pastor Paul, a good friend of mine now, he rubbed ashes on my forehead, and I was like, Ryan, from dust you came, and to dust you shall return. And I was hit by this wave of like this, I don't know, something sacred. And I was like, whoa, and I and I heard those words in a different way. I felt something different and unique. Then I went back and heard this sermon, and I was like, I love this. It was a sacramental rubbing ashes and dirt on your forehead with oil and hearing these words audibly spoken to you. It's this unbelievable uh, you know, um ritual that we do. And it comes from, you know, Genesis 3, where God tells Adam and Eve, it says, Hey, from dust you came and to dust you shall return. Like you're nothing but dust. Uh and we need to know that. Like, hey, you you need to hear this message that you are just dust. A collection of atoms, you know, stardust particles. You're here for a brief moment, then you're then you're going to be gone, and you'll go back into the ground and you'll be worm food at some point, you know. Literally, that's what happens to the body. And um, yeah, you're nothing but dust. And to dust you shall return. Then there's also this element in the Jewish tradition that when they would have these moments of fasting and repentance, where they would pour ashes over their head as a way to recognize that they have gone off the path. They have failed to love God and to love others, and they've sort of broken uh covenant with God, and that was what they would do to kind of repent, and they would reflect deeply and look and see, and then they would kind of return home. Repentance means just to turn around. And so that's what we do. We gather on Ash Wednesday and we rub ashes on each other's foreheads, and then we say, Hey, from dust you came to dust you shall return. In other words, you are not that big of a deal. Your life is a fleeting glimpse, a blip on the radar screen. In a hundred years, your grandkids may remember your name and your face and some stories, but in another hundred years, your great-great-grandkids will barely remember you at all. There might be a photo of you on a wall somewhere, or your name in a book, but that's about it. And so that's it. From dust you came, and to dust you shall return. It's interesting that in all these rites of passages for young men in these tribal cultures, one of the messages that they have to learn as a young man, in order to grow into a full-fledged, like mature human, grown man who contributes who is good and kind and strong, they have to tell the young man, hey, young man, you are going to die. You're not gonna live forever. Now, here's the counter message that you ought to learn too. But even though, yeah, you're nothing but dust, and the dust you're gonna return, uh, you're gonna die, which is the message in uh Lent, like this reflection on your own mortality. Hey, every day until you do die and go back to dust to worm food, you are not dead. Go and live and do something with your life. Like, this is a sacred moment right now, right here, listening to this podcast. It's a sacred moment. So notice your breath, breathe in and notice it, breathe out, and notice it and think deeply and be right where you are. And don't live in the past, don't live in the future. Live right here and right now because you're nothing but dust, and to dust you're gonna go back, and so you might as well love deeply and widely and contribute and shoot for the stars and do all kinds of fun things and you know, give your life away to bigger things than you and live life because you're gonna die. And God forbid anytime soon, but you will die. We don't know when, but it will be uh that you will die, and hopefully again, not soon, but every day until you do die, you will not, and you'll live, so go live. And then that second message is hey, you and I have wandered off the path. We've contributed to the broken, the brokenness in the world, the broken shalom. I call it shalom, this wholeness and completeness and community. Uh, when you look out at the world, it's not, you don't you don't need to be a theologian to see that we've the thing is not how it's supposed to be. And there's brokenness all around. No, there's also pockets of goodness and beauty, but there's also incredible suffering and pain. And you and I often, in small ways and in large ways, will contribute to that brokenness by wandering off the path. And so in Lent, we think deeply about ourselves and and our sort of our our faith journey and where we are on the path and and consider all the ways in which we've gone off the path. So we stop and look deeply. What are the ways, what are the ways we've walked off the path and haven't loved God and loved our neighbors as ourselves? And what are the ways in which we need to hear the voice of God say to us, hey, come home. Turn around. Stop walking that way. That's destruction and death and nothing but pain out that way. So turn around and come home. And like the prodigal son realized what we were longing for and we were looking for. We actually had it all along. So yeah, I love those messages. Those are the two messages in in Ash Wednesday and during Lent. Like, hey, you're nothing but dust, and and to dust you'll return. Your life and my life, we're not that big a deal. But at the same time, we are the apple of God's eye. God loves us so much. And uh, even though we're gonna die, uh, every day until we die, we're gonna live. So go and live and give your life to something beautiful and wonderful and make the world a little bit better today and then tomorrow. And then the second message is like, yeah, you and I have wandered off the path. So take the next 40 days minus the Sundays. How have we wandered off the path? What are the ways we need to repent and turn around and hear the voice of God say, Come home? And then may we indeed come home. So I hope today, this Ash Wednesday, you can consider those two things and that you'll begin to fall in love with these this idea of reflection and looking deeper and thinking deeper about yourself and God and the world around you, because it's the way in which you can live a more meaningful life. All right, love you guys. Happy Ash Wednesday. Peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.