Preparing for Ashes

For your love is before my eyes;
I have walked faithfully with you.
Psalm 26:3

In the spring-promising warmth, I step onto a trail that I have not visited since last fall. I find it yet full of winter bareness. Still, underneath the brown wet earth, I know that new life is being prepared.

Tomorrow is a day of ashes. A day of remembering that we are made of dust and will return to dust. A day for setting our minds and hearts and selves within a season of repentance for the sake of renewal.

Even now negotiating a rocky path amidst branches and stalks and stems that cut gnarled patterns across a pale sky, I find solace in my solitary walk. I stop on a footbridge and gaze at the stream letting my heart flow into the distance with the cold water. And I also see the leaves still caught in frozen layers along the bank waiting for release.