March 5, 2025

Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
excerpts from the 2025 Living Compass Lenten Devotional (PIck one up in the Narthex!)

The children’s song “Ring Around the Rosie” is memorable as much for its words as the actions that go with it. Holding hands and moving in a circle, we either all fall down or all jump up, as we sing:

Ring around the Rosie
Pocket full of posies
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down!

Ash Wednesday is memorable in a similar way. The profound words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” combined with the act of receiving the sign of the cross on our foreheads, means we are sure to carry this powerful message with us through the remainder of Lent.

Humility is at the heart of Ash Wednesday. To observe a holy Lent is to practice humility. It means softening our hearts and opening them to new learning and growth. It is to make changes (or repent) in order to live more fully into the life that God intends for us. While humility is not one of the nine fruit of the Spirit spelled out in Galatians 5 that we will be focusing on in this devotional, it is foundational ground for the fruits of love, peace, joy, kindness, patience, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Life has a way of humbling us at times, of causing us to fall down. Ash Wednesday is an invitation to embrace our fragility and vulnerability. As people of faith, falling down is not something to fear, for we fall knowing that our faith and our God will help us rise up in new and unforeseen ways.

Ash Wednesday reminds us also of our mortality, that life is short.

The ashes of humility and contemplating our mortality can become fertile soil for deepening our spiritual lives and enhancing the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.