What's the big deal about ashes? Why the fuss today?

The last few days have found the headlines reporting stories of the cloud of dust and ash that fell on New York with the fall of the twin towers. Accusations fly, telling that the EPA underestimated how dangerous and corrosive the cloud was. Pulverized metal, caustic chemicals, asbestos, and who knows exactly was else, were all contained in the cloud of ashes that rained down upon New York those first days and weeks. The ashes contained microscopic particles that are able to work their way into the lungs of those who breathed them. Scientists are now confirming what the Catholic Church has intuited for ages. Ashes are dangerous stuff. Ashes are very dangerous stuff.

Why? The ashes that we are signed with have a way of working themselves into the heart and mind and soul. Though they are just a smudge on the forehead, there is something about them that calls to us as a people. They are visible reminders of what we sometimes want to forget - we are a people marked for death. They are a public invitation to a way of life marked by the cross in which they are formed - the dying to self, the rising for others.

In this simple smudge, we become aware of all the ways we are commonly bound with humanity - all of us marked for death. And in that oneness, there is the chance for solidarity. In that awareness of what is the same, we can recognize people of race and color as our brother and sister. Dangerous stuff.

The Newman Center just completed our awakening retreat this weekend. One of the moments that stood out for me on Sunday morning was just prior to the last talk on commitment. Jeff Pope, our musician, sat in a simple chair, no music, no amplification, no microphones - just a nylon stringed guitar - and sang a song by a man named Jeff Buckley, made popular by the movie Shrek. It was called "Broken Hallelujah"... "The battered king composing hallelujah" - goes one of the verses in the middle of the song. The image is of all the attempts one makes to get it right, to live like we know we can and should and want, but somehow, it doesn't happen. It's a broken hallelujah that comes forth. An incomplete song that we sing. And you could have heard a pin drop as we sang it... You could have heard a pin drop. And in that moment, I knew why the ashes were dangerous stuff. Because they force us to confront the battered and broken hallelujahs of our lives. They invite us to live in the awareness that we don't get it right a lot of the time, but that now is the moment to start anew, to begin anew, to strive anew. It's a broken hallelujah, an imperfect offering we bring to God. But a broken, contrite heart is enough to recreate the world. A soul marked by ashes has the strength to begin again...

Ashes ARE dangerous stuff. We've known that for decades. What they signify is death, perhaps in a way that we haven't been in touch with for quite a while this year. What they promise, though, is life. Life rising from the ashes of our broken hallelujahs. Life rising in our sisters and brothers whom we recognize as our own. Life coming from the sacrifice we embark upon and the love we enter into to. Beware these ashes we mark ourselves with. Do not come forward for them, unless you are willing to make the journey anew. For they are dangerous stuff...