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Why Losing Well Matters
I sat in church this morning, after arriving late, out of breath, with dirty hair.
The church is new to me — Episcopalian. The rites are foreign, I’m clumsy with when to sit, stand, kneel, make the sign of the cross…I mumble the liturgy a little delayed and fumble through the prayerbook as I go through the motions of liturgy.
It’s Ash Wednesday- a day when liturgical Christians gather to put soot on our foreheads and hear from one another that
“from dust you came, and to dust you shall return,”
or in plain English:
“nobody gets out of life alive, so buckle up, cowboy.”
As a pastor in recovery, I cherish this day — with images of parishioners past coming up one by one to be told by one they love and trust that yes, you too are going to die one day, but you live and die in the Lord.
Ashes are for losers. Lent is for losing. Church, worship, humility is for people courageous enough to recognize that no one ends up on top. Whether you’re going through a divorce, or a season of grief, or if you are in the stage of life and career where you are “killing it” with success, losing is still always on the table.
The priest reminded us that Lent is for giving up on ourselves, literally losing the self and replacing it with God.
