Here Is Your Life

I am grateful for this new season of Lent -- for a time to recalibrate, to dip the plane below the clouds, fly low enough to see where I am, where I want to be, and what direction I need to aim for to get there. I am grateful to have had the chance tonight to watch hundreds of faces, a great sea of humanity of all ages and sizes and colors -- all with a dark smudge of ashes on their foreheads.  It was quite lovely to see how many people would take the time on a busy Wednesday night to stop and think about the world and their place in it, to ponder the mysteries of life and allow themselves, ourselves, to feel the largeness of it and the smallness of us.  I have felt isolated lately and it was buoying to experience a sense of community again.

When I came home, I took out my book of quotes that I have collected over the years and found many great words that rekindled a small flame inside me…it is my hope that this season of reflection can grow that flame of wonder and passion and joy and love and purpose into something quite brilliant indeed…

Here is one quote that moved me:

"The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.  You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you.  Here is the world.  Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  Don't be afraid.  I am with you.  Nothing can ever separate us.  It's for you I created the universe." ~ Frederick Buechner