Remember you are but dust ...

... and to dust you shall return.
Ash Wednesday has been one of my favourite days in the year for a while now. Sitting in the sanctuary these words become a mantra, said over and over as each person comes forward and a cross of ashes is made on their forehead. At the second service this evening an organist played softly during this time, I actually prefer silence, and just the words over and over.
Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.
I find something intensely comforting in the repeated phrase. Perhaps it is a reminder that nothing is ultimately reliant on me, everything will carry on as it needs to without me there, I am but one part of a much greater whole. It reminds me of my relationship with the earth, and with all the people and plants and animals and bugs and stars that have come before me, and all those that shall follow me.
Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.
I'm always reminded of a meditation we did when I was doing a unit on Meditative Practices during my Studies of Religion major. Our teacher had us reflecting on the decay of this body, with the aim of distancing ourselves from it. I was intensely uncomfortable with the practice at the time, because I felt it had been such a long road for me to try to be an embodied being, that to then try to distance myself from body once more would be counter-productive.
Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.
In contrast with that meditation this mantra tends not to leave me feeling distant from my body, but closer to it.
In recent years there has been an element of acknowledging physical frailty on this day. It's ok that my legs don't always work
Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.
for everyone's body is ultimately fragile.
I've only ever wanted to be cremated, but since I started burying people, I find I rather like it - where I stand I can see lower into the grave than the phoney plastic grass that undertakers place so no-one will get upset by the sight of earth. From where I stand I can see the walls of the grave, plain earth, without prettying up or pretence. I'd like to be able to sprinkle some actual earth on the coffin, but all I'm allowed by undertakers is some nice, sanitised sand. I'm somewhat sad to think I won't have that earth surrounding me, or the patter of earth on the lid of my coffin. But by then, of course, I shan't care.
Remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.
Because any contemplation of mortality is for the Christian coupled with the belief in God's invitation to all creation to enter into eternal life. The fierce conviction that love is stronger than death peals as an echo behind the mantra.
Remember that you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.