death

This sermon was offered at St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York on the first Sunday of Lent, February 17, 2013. Worry. Luke 12.13-34 I was an anxious child. I worried about being left alone. I worried about doing the right thing, whatever that was. I worried that other kids would pick on me. I worried. And as I

Today we remember that we are dust - just like last year and the year before and for as far back as we can remember caring about this day, Ash Wednesday. But we must be told we are dust. We tell each other we are dust. It's not enough to tell ourselves that we are

Last night, I spent two hours standing in Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street subway station reminding complete strangers of their mortality. Each Ash Wednesday, a small band of St. Lydia's community offers ashes to the people passing by. Last year, it was in Union Square (when I first saw them, but did not know who they