A Lenten Reflection by Wyatt Dagit

“Thoughts On Lent”

March 21, 2023

“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These are the words we recite during the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and to me they have always captured the deeper meaning of Lent – humility and contemplation of our mortality. My work as a hospital chaplain exposes me to death on a daily basis. Many of the people I visit are in some way bumping up against the reality of their vulnerability, fragility, and finitude. You would think this kind of work would be depressing, and some days it is. But it also keeps things in perspective. Nowhere is the preciousness of life more apparent than in the shadow of death. To me, that’s always been at the heart of Lent. In the days leading up to Easter I am reminded of what it means to die – and what it means to live.

But this year the phrase remember you are dust is also resonating in a new way. I recently came across an advertisement for a company that, for a fee, will take a person’s cremated remains and bury them in the root ball of a newly planted sapling. The idea is that your ashes nourish a new tree, and you become part of it as it grows. The concept struck me as both strange and beautiful. Part of my spiritual journey in recent years has been about reconnecting with the divine in and through nature. I’ve found a lot of inspiration in the works of authors like Robin Wall Kimmerer and Tyson Yunkaporta, who present wisdom from indigenous perspectives on the sacredness of the natural world. From this point of view, both human and non-human are linked in a vast web of reciprocity. So maybe the idea of becoming a tree isn’t so strange at all. Perhaps the Ash Wednesday recitation to dust you shall return might be interpreted as a reminder that we are “of the earth”. I am literally comprised of the same organic stuff as the soil and everything that grows from it – the trees, the flowers, the crops, my fellow creatures of every shape and size. Rather than being set apart from, and above the natural world, I am one with the rest of creation. What a lovely thought.

That’s why this year I’ve decided Lent is a time for grounding. I will be focused on simplifying, letting go of things that are unnecessary, re-planting myself in the earth and reconnecting with what truly matters.