Ashen X-Ray...

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return...

I was reminded tonight that I am the chief of sinners.  And if my life is to mean anything, anything at all for the Kingdom coming and the Will being done, then my life not should or could or ought but MUST be an incarnation of the Grace that keeps this world. My life must be an open book for your eyes.  If you choose to avert, then so be it.  But this ethic of necessity keeps me writing and telling and sharing and exposing and revealing through narrative, through my own story, the dust am I, a man full of greed and lust and selfish ambition and hatred and jealousy and wrath and lies and more lies.  Ashes, ashes, all fallen down.  I can struggle with my calling - am I called to be a pastor? am I called to be a writer? blah, blah, blah, blah, but I was reminded tonight that my calling is to be humbled, driven to my knees so that my cry is mercy...please, mercy...for he who has been forgiven little, loves little, but he who has been forgiven much, loves much and I want to be a lover.  It's just that simple and simply that hard and I hate like hell that's the way it is, but it is, for I am dust and to dust I shall return.  We can call no man good for only God is good.  That is what Ash Wednesday reminds me of, me, the chief, the cheat, the thief...

Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom...