Ash Wednesday 2023
The Rt. Rev. Brian L. Cole
Diocesan House
When Susan and I were first married, we lived in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and we decided our house needed some art. So, we drove down to Warren Wilson College. They were having an art show and you could purchase art. And we were newly married and eager to bring art into our home. We were looking separately, and then we arrived in front of the same amazing pieces of art four artfully done crosses-beautiful, beautiful religious symbolism. And we both were really taken with it. We thought, this is a sign we’re supposed to be married to each other. We picked the same art: these incredible crosses.
So, we go to purchase these four images and we’re pointing them out to the folks who are running the gallery show and folks are yelling to the cash register and yelling back, and “What did they purchase?”
“They purchased the four plus signs.”
We thought they were crosses.
They thought they were plus signs.
So last week, I went on a retreat to Mepkin Abbey. I was last there 23 years ago. My very first spiritual director, Bishop William Weinhauer, and I drove from Haw Creek, North Carolina, to Moncks Corner, South Carolina, to go on retreat. Bishop Weinhauer was honored by the monks and lived in a, stayed in a house near the church. They put me at the very front gate, which meant I had to walk in the dark back and forth for the early prayers. I thought it was kind of like a monastic hazing experience twenty-three years ago.
To be back there last week was really powerful, to be back twenty-three years later. They built this new retreat center. No one stays in the house where I was years and years ago. And the second morning, praying Lauds, Psalm 90 was the Psalm that we prayed and that passage ‘remember to number your days so a heart of wisdom can grow in you.’
So in a moment, I think I’m going to put a cross on your head. But if you think I’m putting a plus sign, you might be right. Putting a cross on your head to remind you who you belong to and what’s already true about you. But if it’s possible for Ash Wednesday to be joyful, I’m putting a plus sign on your head to say you have been given another day. Another day to number.
And what will you do with this extra day? Use this extra day to continue to think what in you will never die. Because you and I are getting dustier and dustier by the minute. But that heart of wisdom that is already in you that will never die.
So, no matter how many more days you and I have in this life, no matter how many more Ash Wednesdays we have, no matter how many more plus signs are placed upon us, give thanks for those days not to somehow be jealous for them and covet them always, but just to treat them for what they are: days to remember what won’t last, what will pass away. That anxious email at some point just won’t matter.
What will matter is that heart of wisdom that is already in you and that we have the time today to reflect on that heart of wisdom that is growing and growing and growing. So with each day we’re given, we remember the God who gave us those days. When our days are done, it is God who will hold us forever in God’s heart of wisdom.
Amen.