Ashes to Ashes

Ashes to Ashes

When I was growing up, my family was not very religious.  We went to church when I was very young because my parents thought we ought to.  When it became more of a chore for them to get my brother and I up and ready to get to church in time, we stopped going.  I carried the guilt of our fall from the church for many years.  Even now, I wonder how I as a rebellious and whiney kid had such power as to keep my family from attending church.  I remember that as with most things I resist doing (even today) I usually end up enjoying myself and wondering why I ever fought it.

Today is a day when much of the world is led to stop for a moment and reflect on the temporal nature of life.  The writer of Psalm 90 in the Bible says that human life is like grass that flourishes in the morning, but is dried and withered by evening.  All in the span of one brief metaphorical day.  It reminds us just how fleeting our lives are.  We come into this world with nothing and we leave the same way, and alone.  It is what we do in the meantime that makes a life.

I would venture to surmise that it the writer of this Psalm was taken with the brevity of life.  He or she has an "aha" moment when they realized it is all for naught if we put our stock in our accomplishments or in our aspirations.  It is the Now that matters.  I've said this before and I'll probably say it again: Life is in the living.  The dead have no life other than what is beyond this one.

Where I am today it is a bright and beautiful morning.  The sky is absolutely clear and blue.  The air is comfortably warm.  The birds are feeding at my feeder and others sing there morning praises in the trees.  It is indeed life and it is for the living.

I find myself constantly seeking inspiration and meaning.  Like that little boy so long ago who didn't want to go to church, I often find myself resisting going to those places, like church, where I find that inspiration and meaning.  I want to stay home and work in the garden or even just go back to bed.  Yet when I get up and get moving through each moment, practicing the discipline of mindfulness, I usually find I am glad I did.

There is someone I know who always asks me if I have had fun recently.  I usually respond by saying, "I don't like fun."  So what do I mean by that?  Surely not that because it is ashes to ashes and dust to dust, it must all be suffering.  Life is "fun" only if you make it so.  I am trying.  And even if I resist the fun (defined here as joy, inspiration, peace, etc.) eventually, I find I enjoy it when I am there, in the Now.