Dirt

       Sunday, we watched a video about breath at Alan and Sue Dailey's. The video started with a discussion of us as "fragile, divine dirt." The speaker posed the idea that breathing in and breathing out is the equivalent of speaking God's Name. That when we are born the first thing we must do is speak, and as we die, the last thing we do is speak God's name. I went off onto a private tangent, with my breath control for meditation. Breathing, and awareness of our breath as an avenue to peace for meditation and prayer has always been mystical for me. I remember, untrained at the time, sitting in my dormitory room, lights out except for a primitive light board, and concentrating on making my breating regular and calm. My roommate came home 6 hours later to find me in lotus and so quiet it scared him.
     I also remember almost drowning when I traveled to Southern California for Seminarian Summer. I got caught in a rip tide and was being pulled north and out and down. I remember my fear, remember straining, remember being determined not to lose a single breath, and when the surfer came to lift me up, I remember pausing with him holding me to get my breath back. I was overwhelmed by gratitude, and when I got back to shore, I was also overwhelmed by my awareness of my breathing. I lay there for an hour, feeling myself inhale, pause, exhale, pause. The slow pulse of my life.
     Yesterday, I was able to participate in the Ash Wednesday services at Highland Hospital and at Unity Living Center at St. Mary's. Each began days earlier with a flurry of organizing, deciding on what to do, printing flyers and bulletins, arranging for ashes, deciding the  tactics. On the day, both sites held a short service in the chapel. Lay-led at Highland, priest-led at St. Mary's. Then we chaplains took containers of ash to the floors. For rooms with infection alerts, we used medical swabs. But most people I was able to touch. The ash in my little container was so fragile, so ephemeral, but the looks on the faces of the patients family and staff as they received it were stunning. I was exhausted. This morning, that fragile ephemeral ash is still embedded in my thumb pad, under the nail and in the cuticle. Divine dirt.