Ashes and Dust

It’s Ash Wednesday, today is the day that I place Ashes on the forehead of members of my church family. Today is the day that I say “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Which, let’s be honest, is really just a churchy way of saying “Don’t forget, you’re going to die.”

I promise, it’s not as bleak as it sounds.

But, it is an important reminder.

We are all going to die, there is no escaping that. So, the real question is, what will we do with the time we have on this side of God’s Kingdom.

Will we use this time to merely store up Earthly treasures, or will we (as Christians) strive to do our best to love and serve God and our neighbor.

Ash Wednesday kicks off the season of Lent, a time of reflection and repentance. During this season our desire to return to God and to return to our spiritual disciplines is more amplified than usual.

Yes, it is Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are but dust, and to dust we shall return.

Naturally, writing my sermon today made me think of Tiffany and the short amount of time she had with us on this plane of existence.

Two memories came to mind, the first of which made it into tonight’s sermon.

Thinking of Ash Wednesday caused me to think about what we do with the time we have before we return to dust, it should cause all of us to consider what we will leave behind when our time here is done.

Will we be remembered for who we were and how we treated people? Or, will we be remembered for the things we possessed and left behind?

This question took me back to Mexico in the Summer of 2012.

Tiffany and I had taken a small honeymoon immediately following our wedding in 2011. Uncle John and Aunt Barb had graciously offered us a getaway to the cabin in Northern Minnesota. We had a wonderful week in the Northwoods.

However, our “real” honeymoon was planned for the summer of 2012. Tiffany’s grandparents gave us the gift of one week in their timeshare in Puerto Vallarta, and they also gave us enough skymiles to get there. What a treat!

We had a great time in Mexico. We met some cool people, we ate some great food, and we soaked up a lot of sun. But, no trip would be complete without at least one trial or tribulation to overcome.

We got duped into a timeshare presentation.

We got off the plane, we ran through a gauntlet of timeshare presenters in the airport, only to get caught at the last second by a guy claiming to be from our hotel. He gave us a map and a shot of tequila, so I figured he couldn’t be all bad. He showed us where everything was on the map, and then he showed us brochures for all of the fun stuff. 

Then, get this, he told us about all the free/discounted stuff we could get if we just sat through a presentation. He gave us 50% off discounts for zip-lines, a romantic cruise, and a city tour. And all we had to do was give him the money up front.

Now, I have to tell you that I had never been to Mexico before, I didn’t know anything about how this stuff worked.

Tiffany had been several times with family.

Back to our story. So, the offers are on the table, he just needs the discounted payment up front. Tiffany looks at me and says, “sounds good to me.” To which I agree, “if we’re going to do this fun stuff anyway, we might was well get a discount.”

My frugality will someday lead to my demise.

After the transaction, Tiffany and I finally get into the car taking us to our hotel. She then turns to me and says, “I hope that wasn’t a scam.”

My stomach sinks.

“Wait, what!?”

I said, “I thought this was normal, I thought you had done something like this before. We just gave that dude 125 pesos.”

To which she replies, “No, I thought you thought it was a good idea.”

Oh dear…

A cab was arranged to pick us up the next morning to take us to the other resort so they could pitch us their timeshare presentation.

I laid awake most of the night.

I was sure that we were going to be kidnapped and our organs were going to be sold on the black market.

Morning came and so did the taxi.

Along the way to our destination, a bus roared by our cab and hit a puddle. That puddle water leapt through our open window and into my mouth. I was sure that it was a bad omen.

We arrived safely. The place wasn’t sketchy at all. And besides the high pressure, brow beating sales pitch at the end we had a decent time.

During our tour of the resort, the guide wined and dined us as he told us about all the awesome things that the resort had to offer. Of course, he used all of the sales pitch questions he had been trained to use. All of which were carefully crafted to convince us that we needed to purchase timeshares from his company.

Then came my favorite question.

“When you’re gone, what would you want to be remembered for?”

Surely, he was using this as an angle to work in the fact that purchasing a large portion in a timeshare would enable me to have something to pass down to my children and grandchildren. Yes, someday they too could sit in on an awful timeshare presentation experience and fondly remember that it was I who passed this wonderful gift down to them…

But, my answer wasn’t what he expected.

“When you’re gone, what would you want to be remembered for?” He asked.

“I’d like to hope that people will remember me as someone who left the world a little bit better off than how I’d found it.” I answered, in all honesty.

He was speechless.

Tiffany almost laughed out loud by how off-guard my answer caught him.

He didn’t have a ready-made timeshare pitch prepared for that answer.

Thinking about the symbolism of Ash Wednesday reminded me of that day, and more specifically that conversation.

Because, I still feel the same way.

As I ponder mortality, I’d still like to be remembered for who I was, not for what I had.

And hopefully, when people remember who I was, it will be as a man who loved God, his family, his friends, and as man who tried to do right by friend and stranger alike.

But enough about me, because this post is about Tiffany.

When I consider the symbolism of Ash Wednesday, and how we spend our time and energy before we return to dust, I thank God that Tiffany gave us more than “possessions” to remember her by.

She didn’t leave us timeshares or a fancy Stradivarius violin.

She left us with memories of her love, beauty, compassion, thoughtfulness, and grace.*
(*Grace, as in how well she treated everyone she met. Not how gracefully she tripped over and/or spilled anything and everything.)

I was hiking and searching for Bigfoot with my friend Josh over this past summer. Josh is not only a friend, he is a pastoral colleague. During our hike we were waxing theologically, going back and forth as we usually do. Then the subject came to eschatology, a fancy word for what you believe about the end of the world.

As we talked about the old things passing away and the new heaven and the new earth, and how God will make all things new and wipe away every tear from our eyes. It really caused me to consider how thankful I was for God’s light that we all saw through Tiffany.

Losing Tiffany was the largest lesson in the impermanence of this world that I had ever learned.

However, through the impermanence of this life, I was able to more fully appreciate the one thing that is permanent, God and His love.

Furthermore, I learned that the most important thing we can do on this side of God’s creation is to love and serve God and neighbor as best we can. Because in the end, that’s all that matters.

As Josh and I chatted and hiked that day, I could feel that emotional lump in my throat well up as I was able to put into words for the first time just how important it was to me that Tiffany left behind a life of love worth remembering. Because the light and love that shone forth from her was the light and love given to her by our triune God.

During that conversation it really sank in that even though her life was cut short, she had done what God had called her to do with the time that she had. Out of dust she was formed, and to dust she has returned, but during the time in between she really made it count.

Though the sting of death is still very sharp, I have come to find some peace in knowing that while she was here she did the only thing that mattered. She loved as God had loved her.

She loved her family, she loved her friends, she loved her co-workers, she loved the students she worked with, and she loved the strangers we encountered in our ministry.

And most importantly, she recognized where that love came from. She spread the love given to her by God, and she returned the love given to her by God.

Was she perfect? No. Was loving all of the aforementioned always easy for her? No.

But she was always willing to try. And she was always willing to ask God to help her.

I think of all of these things on this Ash Wednesday and I am thankful.

I’m thankful for the life of love that Tiffany showed us, because in the end it’s all that really matters.

I pray that when each of us goes back down to dust, we can be remembered for such love.

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

Grace and Peace,

Abner