Meditations on Mortality

Well, Lent begins again today, and with it my discipline of blogging as an attempt to focus my mind and heart on the spiritual in the everyday.

Today is Ash Wednesday, and in our service this evening, I (along with the other pastor at my church) will place ashes on people's foreheads in the shape of a cross, admonishing them to "remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I feel like my life in the past year has been too full of reminders that all life returns to ashes and dust. We mortals are so fragile, and the difference between life and death is so often a breath, a step in the wrong direction, away. Three young women, either loved by me or by those I care about, have died suddenly and far too young. Two of them were struck by cars while crossing a street.

I've also marveled at the other end of life, how new life comes into being, especially over the past 15 months, watching my little baby and being amazed that such a tiny thing can be fully alive.

Life is amazing. Life is fragile. That's the deal. For me, this is a big part of the answer to one of the Big Questions of Lent (and, I suppose, Christianity) -- Why did Jesus die? Jesus died because he was human. We all die. It's the price of this precious life.