Something for us to remember, as we are marked this day with ashes. Perhaps these ashes here are like the ashes of Kiluaea. In fact, these ashes are signs of our mortality. We are tied to the earth, and we will die one day, every one of us. Tomorrow or next year or 70 years from now, we will die, like all things of the earth.
Death is the supreme limit, the primary symbol and reality our limited, finite nature.
As such finite beings, we owe all we are and all we have to a gracious creative power beyond us, from whom comes the vision of how to live our lives as healthy, whole, finite beings. To think anything else of ourselves is an act of pride and a delusion of invincibility. To think anything else leads to a kind of death before we die - the death of sin and estrangement and isolation from our own true selves, from others, and from the God who made us mortal. But of course, we do often prefer this pride and delusion to a humble recognition of our mortality. We pay little real attention to the rights and feelings of others, as if there is no limit to our own desires and needs.