"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

Are those frightening words? Each Ash Wednesday I say those words, as I trace the sign of the cross, in ashes, on the foreheads of people that I love. It is a difficult thing for me to do! How fragile our human lives are.

Each morning when I stand in front of the mirror, preparing to shave, with my shirt off, two scars on my body still frighten me. One scar reminds me where the tracheostomy was, when I could not breathe on my own and depended on a ventilator. The other is where the PEG line (feeding tube) was inserted. How fragile human life is. I cannot forget that, because of those scars

Joseph Sittler once wrote, "The fear of death, I am convinced, is at the root of all human apprehension." Our culture encourages us to try out best to bury that fear, to pretend that we will live forever. The thousands of marketing messages we receie each day encourage us to believe that the universe revolves around us!

On the other hand, the journey of faith leads us into that fear, because that's where the grace-filled promises of God become real; no longer simply words.

We will die. Only when that is real to us are we open to receiving God's grace. Only then do we live in healthy humility. Only then do we come to depend on our trust and confidence and joyful hope in God. Only then do we receive the Good News of Jesus the Christ, that there is life with God after our human deaths.