We are broken. Broken people, full of broken promises, broken relationships, broken ideas, broken families, broken jobs, just broke. At times we may feel completely broken, destroyed, ruined, smashed to smithereens. Other times we may feel more like a leaky pot starting to break or full of holes or cracks in need of repair. Either way, brokenness is painful, scary, uncertain.

What causes your cracks? How are the cracks fixed?

I think Lent is a good time to recognize our cracks, our brokenness, and recognize our need for God. We might realize this all year long, but during these weeks between Epiphany and Easter gives us the opportunity to relent our desire to control life, and give it to God. As the cliché goes, let go, and let God. Part of confession and repentance is not just for sin and forgiveness, but a cry of mercy that we need healing and wholeness, that our cracks and brokenness need repair.

And only God can really fix those cracks. The church, our friends, our family, wealth, entertainment, are as broken as we are and will fall short of fulfilling us or repairing the gaps. We need God to restore us. To bring us hope. That is why we talk about fasting and prayer, and other spiritual practices especially during Lent – because they reconnect us to the potter, to God who fixes.

That is why many people give up something for Lent. Besides being a tradition, the practice connects us to God. Today I saw a book title that was about giving up things at Lent, but from another perspective. Maybe sometimes we are connected to God, not because of giving up a pleasure, like sweets or movies, but are best connected by giving up our…

As I read these ideas, I wondered if some of those weren’t the cause of my own brokenness. Giving it up, or at least trying, is a way that I am able to admit my need for God to repair my cracks.

My good friend Jason one Lent was given a nail and told to keep it with him throughout Lent. He said it was a constant reminder of his need for God’s grace. In the past I have taken the practice of writing Lenten letters, to mentors, coaches, teachers, friends, family who have inspired me in life and faith. Just to say thank you, and to thank God for them.

These are all ways of admitting– God we can’t do life alone, we can’t fix ourselves, only your love will help.

And Lent starts with this very visible reminder that we need God. Ash Wednesday is a literally in your face reminder of the fact that we are not in control.

Remember, we are dust and to dust we shall return.

It is very humbling to mark the ash cross on your forehead, and remind you of mortality – from the very old, to the very young, from those dealing with cancer, to those who are healthy. Marking the cross on the foreheads of my wife and daughter. Having the cross placed on my head. We see that our lives are temporary, and we are bits of dust.

Pottery dust, parts of broken pots, chipped fragments, sooty clay. But not irreparable, no matter the brokenness.

Kintsukuroi is an art form that repairs with gold or silver laquer, understanding the piece is more beautiful after it has been broken.

Remember we are broken, we are dust. But Ash Wed also reminds us of the amazing things that God creates from dust. Long ago God created life from the dust. Just as God transforms death to life, and bad to good. God doesn’t create the brokenness, but God does repair it, God takes the fragments, the dust, the shards, and makes it a new creation, something better than we could have imagined.

And God loves each speck of dirt and dust. And blesses us.

Blessing the Dust
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

Did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made,
and the stars that blaze
in our bones,
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

-Jan Richardson