Ashes

I'm now off the sofa and way more mobile than when I last mused here. The back does get tired so Lisa's Lateral Life (nod to Hayley D for that one!!) isn't completely over, but the end is in sight. So in celebration of my new mobility the Beloved and I headed to the Newseum. The clue to this mecca's focus is in the name - it's all about the news.

There is a Pulitzer Prize photograph gallery where award-winning images capture and reflect humanity. The vast majority of these photos are taken during war, catastrophe and tragedy. It's not a pretty sight. It was soul marring and spirit invading.

I reeled from one image in particular and I can't even remember where or when it was taken, somewhere in Africa is the best I can do. Anyway, it was of a crouching man, an alleged spy, who had been viciously beaten and set alight. As his body flamed an attacker was plunging a machete into his skull.

I was totally speechless and repulsed; it was a vomit inducing, terror producing, heart-breaking glimpse at man's capability. I had no idea what to do with it. Christ have mercy...

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a time of self-reflection and preparation for Easter. In churches all over the world people will receive the imposition of ashes as an outward reminder that we are but dust and to dust we will return. The man who was beaten, burnt and macheted to death became ashes, but so will his assailant. The poor and the powerful, the broken and the joyful, the unlovely and the loved; are all dust.

After the Newseum I needed to be around beauty to balance the horror. In the National Gallery of Art it was fitting that I found it in an exhibition of Picasso's Drawings. A tortured soul who produced such beauty. When all is stripped away, we humans are all the same. All have this capacity for loving and hurting, torturing and comforting, selfish delight and selfless sacrifice. I guess it's about seeking, by the grace and mercy of God, to live out of our beauty rather than our torture.

Isaiah 61 v3 reminds us that the Lord will bestow on us on "a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair". We may all be but dust but we're preparing for Easter! Out of death will come resurrection and life eternal, the ashes are not the end.

So this Lent, go ahead and give up chocolate and booze, TV and Facebook; but how about each day wearing a garment of praise, pouring out the oil of gladness and trying to bring beauty where there are only ashes. What a headline that would be in the Newseum!