by Ai Weiwei
Lent has just begun.
Colleagues and I have spent the past week discussing what Ash Wednesday is all about. We priests says, as we mark another’s head with ashes, “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” We who believe in the Resurrection say this over and over again to people in our care, including children. It’s an odd day.
Ash Wednesday is about the full circle of life. Ai Weiwei captures this in his 2013 piece “Dust to Dust.” I saw it at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto when I was visiting friends. He bought broken Neolithic Machang pottery pieces that were broken and destined for the trash. He then ground them into dust, poured the dust into glass jars, and displayed them. Somehow it’s still beautiful. Like something perfectly designed for a Crate & Barrel catalog. Jars of Neolithic Chinese pottery dust.
I often forget how much I love Ash Wednesday, until the end of it.
After we put ashes on everyone’s head, we celebrate Eucharist and invite all those people doomed to die (including ourselves) to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, the sign of eternal life, of healing and wholeness. The sign that despite our inevitable demise we will be forever united to God. Despite our sin and failure, God forgives us and restores us relationship with God.
In the stories of the feeding of the crowds, when Jesus turns 3 loaves of bread and 2 fish into enough for thousands, all the left over broken pieces are gathered up. It’s also what happens on the cross when God who is Human gathers us all to himself, gathers up all the broken pieces, and redeems us in the defeat over death. The sad, broken pieces of ourselves are collected, saved, and made beautiful. More beautiful, even, than Neolithic pottery dust.
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