Song of Ashes

Ash Wednesday

Let my trust be in Your mercy, not in myself. Let my hope be in Your love, not in health, or strength, or ability or human resources.

If I trust You, everything else will become, for me, strength, health, and support. Everything will bring me to heaven. If I do not trust You, everything will be my destruction.

                                                                      Thomas Merton. Thoughts in Solitude.

Have mercy on me, God, in accord with your merciful love; in your abundant compassion blot out my transgressions.

                                                                        Psalm 51:3

Ashes softly sifting through the grates of being. What embers still casting old sunlight. How perfect to wake to them in darkness on Ash Wednesday morning. They are my kin. I feel them stirring in the bones of my waking.  I submit to them. How lightly falling we truly are. Yet, I believe and have faith in He who alters this reality by His gruesome death on a cross and His glorious rising. I will keep our Lord Jesus Christ’s name in the crevices of my heart and dying; these molecules shifting. I am beautifully carved in love on the palm of His hand, my name swirling around the deepest puncture. I will, with His help, make a joyful noise for Him, for the breath allowed and my passing through this needle’s eye of sanctity. 

May I realize my nothingness all my days 
and shimmer 
a long emptiness singing,
rising from dust 
because of Your infinite mercy
this cross of ash
I do wear.