From Ashes to Growth

Ugh. Why now? Just as the dark months recede like memories of a bad dream, and as longer days begin to whisper the merest possibility of summer and sunny beaches and in-season tomatoes—we’re meant to ruminate on our guaranteed demise and subsequent disintegration. Here comes the sun. We’re all gonna die.

And on a Wednesday, no less. Could this be any less convenient? Can’t even get a three-day weekend out of it. Thanks, Christianity.

Seasonally speaking, it would feel more appropriate if we were celebrating, say, soil, rich humus that has gently broken down into nourishment for our gardens and the forest floor. May I propose Soil Wednesday? Or even better, Soil Sunday? We’d joyfully pile compost around the altar, plant blooming things in it, get dirt under our fingernails. Totally on-brand for the season.

Wait. That’s feeling like Easter. Which I would probably not advise re-branding as a dirt festival. But I digress, so back to my thought for the week, because Easter is a whole other story than Ash Wednesday.

Or is it?

Ashes are intense. Substance radically and fundamentally transformed by physics and chemistry, heat and fire. This metamorphosis can be violent, the aftermath of an inferno. It can also be inviting and warm, a crackling campfire, the end of a cigarette, what’s left of a match after lighting a candle, or the remains of incense.

Or of a palm frond. Remember that sunny Sunday last springtime when we hosanna’ed our way around the building, getting odd looks from pedestrians on Piccadilly? Last year’s almost-Easter palms — this year’s ashes.

I grew up on the New Jersey shore. The restless Atlantic was a primary force, the backdrop to our daily lives. Our family is more of a “cremation” family. We don’t really do burials, there’s no family cemetery plot. We prefer the ocean.

My mother, like most of my family, always said that she wanted her ashes to be scattered from the end of the jetty at the beach where we spent all of our summer days. My grandparents, my uncle, my dad, many others from past generations — we said our farewells to all of them from the giant rocks at the end of that jetty.

Each summer, I’d loll in the waves, the jetty just 50 meters away. I’d think about how I was swimming not just with the memories of people I loved, but that I was literally swimming in them, through them. However this may sound, it wasn’t creepy. It felt connected, flowing and physical.

The Gospels tell us that the resurrected Christ, when He appeared to the disciples, was material. Transformed, yet still physical.

Ash Wednesday and Easter aren’t really so far apart.

Of course, we have those forty days of Lent that both separate and bridge Ash Wednesday and Easter. Though “forty days” was a scriptural idiom meaning “a rather long time,” I’m struck by the precision of the assignment. We’re on the clock for contemplation, for growth. Lent’s seasonal position means that here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s getting brighter each day. We are literally getting enlightened. Ash Wednesday is our portal to this self-transforming time.
Ashes are more than a starting point. Ashes remind us to think about how we’ll end up.

When my mom passed, almost exactly two years ago, we honoured her wish, the family tradition. We chose a bright sunny mid-day just after a big snowstorm and headed out to the beach.

When we got there, we all gasped in wonderment. Overnight, our beach had become otherworldly, a place none of us had ever seen. Instead of miles of beige sand and grey-green Atlantic waves, we stepped onto a field of pure shining white snow, stretching out to meet the darkest clearest blue of the ocean. It was Antarctic.

We clambered to the end of the jetty. I scooped a handful of ashes from the urn. I said a prayer of gratitude. As I flung my hand out as fast and far as I could, releasing the ashes into the air, a sudden gust of wind blew off the water. The ashes didn’t make it into the waves. They sprayed instead across the dark rocks below.

I looked down to see. Those huge stones, strewn and scattered with my mother’s ashes, became… silver. Truly I tell you, they were glittering with stardust. I know it sounds crazy, so I took a photo. I can show it to you. Ashes never looked so beautiful.

Then a wave crashed over them, and washed my mom’s ashes into the vastness of the whole world.

So what do I think about Ash Wednesday? It’s not exactly uplifting, nor mysterious, nor many of the things I love about faith. But the older I get, and the more life and loss I experience, the more I am grateful for its invention as an inconvenient interruption, a dare to reframe life’s meaning, and an open gateway to growth.

And now I’ve seen how ashes have an elemental beauty. Yes, they’re a memento mori, but then, what isn’t? Plus, as you might know, certain ashes actually make an excellent and natural fertiliser. They limit soil acidity, add essential nutrients, and fuel flourishing new growth. They’re fabulous for summer tomato plants.