Ash Wednesday is symbol-rich day. It is marked with one of the most evocative Christian symbols in all of our liturgies. We smudge a cross of ash on each other and we say to them:

Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

For most Christians, we deal first and primarily with the symbol and the ritual in a physical and tangible way. We get distracted by the ashes and the words and the disciplines and the traditions that we pay little attention to what the church is actually trying to communicate about GOD.

We are dust.
We return to the dust.

We are of the earth.
We return to the earth.

It is a statement of what we are. What we are not is above the earth. We are not better than or more important than the earth. We are the earth. We are a part of creation.

Life, death are part of creation. Part of being created, living, dying. And in dying, we return. Not only to GOD, but to the earth, to creation. We persist in creation. In the soil, we become soil. We provide for new life, new creation.

Today, may we be more connected with all of creation. That we might be more connected with our creator.