All I have to do is trust exactly as a child. Personally I learned to pray by asking God for the strength to accept his “no” even when it is difficult for me to understand why.Įxactly like when I was a child I did not understand the “no” of my parents but I am sure that the time will come for me to understand the “no” of God. Praying means first of all thanking for what we have and also for what we don’t have. Only after many years and after having also covered the same role of those who had not listened to us, we understand that if we had received only “yes” we would not have been really happy and maybe we would have lost ourselves in the sadness of a child who knows that he gets everything and immediately from his parents just because parents themselves are not interested in him and don’t want to be bothered. Now that we are adults, perhaps parents ourselves, we are grateful for those “no”. Of course, in those moments, those “no” made us cry, angry, maybe even react physically against our impassive parent facing of our whims. Here is the importance of those “no” received from our parents when we were children. Our Special Interlocutor is as good as a father and mother who listens to their children and knows very well that many of the requests are not for the good of them. Hyde” we believe we are God and begin to want to take control. Maybe in these cases we get confused and, like “Dr. We often confuse it with a list of needs and then get angry because we don’t get their fulfillment right away. Prayer is a dialogue with a Special Interlocutor. To do this, he/she has some aids available: prayer, fasting, forgiveness and charity. Today is a special Wednesday for Christians because it marks the beginning of Lent, a period of fourty days in which each believer is called to be better. The dust put on our heads brings us back to earth, it reminds us that we come from the earth and that we will return to earth. Yet, no, it is a well-known quote from the Bible, in particular from Genesis, 3, 19. I’ve posted the lyrics below because I think they’re very resonant, to me at least.The title of today’s article “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return” seems a sentence worth saying to his opponent by a warrior before the final battle, almost as if to induce greater fear before the attack. The song in this video is ‘Naked As We Came’ by Iron and Wine. I’m not sure I can put what I want to say as articulately it’s tempting to just steal his sermon and pretend it’s my blog post for today! I don’t know languages well enough to speak with any authority on what is meant in the original so I’ll leave that to people who know what they’re talking about! I think I need more than just a couple of hours to properly process everything from tonight’s service – but I have the whole of Lent, so that’s okay!ĭad’s sermon on this topic was excellent, though I may be biased! I’ll try to persuade him to post it or a version of it, and then share it so you can read it if you are interested. It serves as a reminder that life was breathed into us, and that is the most physical of acts – both life giving and life sustaining. I think Ash Wednesday adds yet another perspective to this, though. Thinking in terms of being in a battle with our bodies, or of our bodies as against us, fighting us, is never something I’ve found particularly helpful (as I explained a little in an early blog post). Lent is a useful and very necessary reminder that these binaries don’t actually work, either in theory or in reality. I have spent a lot of time disliking my body, either for the way it looks or the way it works (or doesn’t work as I expect it to, more accurately). It’s difficult for me sometimes to see my body as being ‘me’ so Ash Wednesday, and Lent in general, is a good time to focus on this. The line ‘remember you are dust and to dust you shall return’ has been one of my favourites in liturgy for a while now, and it has a very different but very important resonance for me now. I didn’t take an #ashtag selfie because the cross didn’t show up particularly well, so you’ll just have to take my word for it! It was a beautiful service, even if I did start tearing up midway through and then not stop until the end (for which I blame a combination of ashing, the hymns and communion) – there were lots of elements that make me cry at the best of times let alone now.īetween today and yesterday’s Iron and Wine gig, there’s been a lot of focus on mortality lately. This evening I went to an Ash Wednesday service at Hurley Church, one of my dad’s five churches.
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