Word for Word 2/18/26

Ash Wednesday: Remembering Who We Are

Today is Ash Wednesday. Christians around the world will pause in the middle of an ordinary week to do something very strange: receive a smudged cross of ashes on their foreheads and hear the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I remember my first Ash Wednesday as a pastor. I was serving at a church with an elementary school, and that day we placed ashes on the foreheads of children during chapel. Speaking those words over so many precious, little faces was jarring. I didn’t like thinking that even they would one day return to dust.

And yet that is the strange gift of this day. Ash Wednesday tells the truth we often avoid: our lives are fragile and finite. We are not in control. But this truth is not meant to frighten us. It is meant to bring us home. When we remember that we are dust, we also remember that we are held - by one another and by the God who gives us breath. Our limits remind us that we belong to something larger than ourselves.

Ash Wednesday begins the forty-day season of Lent, a time set aside to slow down and return to what matters most. Some people give something up. Others take on a new practice. But Lent is not about religious performance or self-improvement. It is about paying attention.

Over time, it is easy to drift and start to live on autopilot. We fill our days with noise and distraction. Lent creates space to ask: What is shaping my life? What needs healing? What might I need to release?

You don’t have to be especially religious to appreciate that kind of pause. You might set aside a few quiet minutes each day. You might step back from a habit that crowds your spirit. You might reach out to someone who feels alone. The goal is not deprivation, but clarity.

Ash Wednesday reminds us of something we all share: life is precious, and it does not last forever. We are dust - and we are deeply loved dust.

If you would like to observe Lent in community, we invite you to join our congregation for lunch and worship each Wednesday at noon at 480 Diagonal Street in Lansing. This evening at 6 p.m., we’ll also offer a Sound Bath meditation - a quiet time to sit and listen to healing sounds by candlelight - with the opportunity to receive ashes afterward.

Lent begins with ashes, but moves toward hope. Before we rush there, this day invites us to slow down and remember who we are. In a world that urges us to be bigger, faster, and stronger, Ash Wednesday offers a quieter truth: You are human. You are held. And that is enough.

Rev. Laura Gentry
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church
Lansing