The season of Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday, when we'll consider the meaning of the words used when the ashes which the day is named for are imposed on a person's forehead or hand: "Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return". Hence, the "object that remind us" for Ash Wednesday is "dust".

Genesis 2 tells us that as creation happened, God made humans from the dust of the ground. After Adam and Eve managed to disobey God, it then came to be that they--and we--would at the end of their lives return to the dust from which they were made. That would seem to be why the tradition has been to bury those who have died in the ground (although most often it is in hermetically sealed caskets and liners, such that a body does not decay back into the earth, even while buried in the earth). Even cremation reduces the body to ashes--a kind of dust, you could say We know that despite the amazing advances of medical science that save lives and certainly prolong them, none of us lives forever. We all will have to deal with death; we will need to deal with the emotional reality of experiencing the death of others, as well as knowing that we ourselves will die. We will return to dust, one way or another.

Job seems to be grappling with that reality in the passage from chapter 30; Hannah in the 1 Samuel passage affirms how God raises the poor up from the dust, and the Psalmist affirms that clinging to God's precepts helps us deal with this reality that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

The response that one makes upon receiving the ashes? "In life and in death, I belong to God." This is the affirmation of the divine gift of life to each of us, and the divine promise that our life is in God, and our eternal life is in God.

OLD TESTAMENT Genesis 2:4b-7

4b In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

OLD TESTAMENT Job 30:16-23

16 ‘And now my soul is poured out within me;
days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17 The night racks my bones,

   and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
18 With violence he seizes my garment;
   he grasps me by the collar of my tunic.
19 He has cast me into the mire,
   and I have become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry to you and you do not answer me;
   I stand, and you merely look at me.
21 You have turned cruel to me;
   with the might of your hand you persecute me.
22 You lift me up on the wind, you make me ride on it,
   and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23 I know that you will bring me to death,
   and to the house appointed for all living.

OLD TESTAMENT 1 Samuel 2:1a, 2, 7-9

1 Hannah prayed and said,
‘My heart exults in the Lord;
   my strength is exalted in my God. . . .
2 ‘There is no Holy One like the Lord,
   no one besides you;
   there is no Rock like our God. . . .
7 The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
   he brings low, he also exalts.
8 He raises up the poor from the dust;
   he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
   and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
   and on them he has set the world.
9 ‘He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
   but the wicked shall be cut off in darkness;
   for not by might does one prevail.

PSALTER Psalm 119:25-32

25 My soul clings to the dust; revive me according to your word.
26 When I told of my ways, you answered me; teach me your statutes.
27 Make me understand the way of your precepts,
   and I will meditate on your wondrous works.
28 My soul melts away for sorrow;
   strengthen me according to your word.
29 Put false ways far from me; and graciously teach me your law.
30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness;
   I set your ordinances before me.
31 I cling to your decrees, O Lord; let me not be put to shame.
32 I run the way of your commandments,
   for you enlarge my understanding.