Ash Wednesday, February 14

WHAT WILL I DO WITH THIS TIME?

Where are you?” my husband asks through my cellphone.

“Sitting in a cemetery,” I say. I stopped here on my way to the grocery store to sit among the dead.
Near my city’s center, this cemetery has a parking problem. It’s surrounded by small, tightly packed,
single-family homes, people who can’t afford a mountain view in the Shenandoah Valley, people who
can’t be too picky about their neighbors. My car is parked in a tow-away zone, so I sit in the grass among
headstones where I can keep an eye on it.

An ambulance siren wails a few blocks away, but here there is no sign of distress. It’s so quiet. So still.
Only me and a squirrel, who’s giving me the side-eye as he nibbles an acorn. I contemplate the quiet of
death. The rest. The feeling of peace that slowly fills me as I allow myself to forget about my parked car, my
grocery run, the work left on my to-do list.

I take in the names on the headstones nearby and wonder what advice Abby, Erwin and Paul would
share from the other side. I wonder: what would my grandparents want me to know? Or my friend Chrissy,
who died by suicide? Here, in the cemetery, I am reminded of my reality: I have one precious, limited life.
What will I do with this time? What will you?

Prayer | Divine Creator, from dust you formed us, gifting us with life. To dust we will return. Hear our prayers for all who come forward to receive the mark of their mortality today, ashes smeared on the foreheads of young and old. Hear our prayers for pastors who touch ashy thumb to warm skin, making the sign of the cross on the foreheads of those they love. Awaken us all, Giver of Life, to the reality of our limits, the fact of our mortality, and the precious chance we have now to live and love and marvel. | Amen.

Written by Teri M. Ott
Harrisonburg, Virginia

2024 Lenten Devotions – Local Pilgrim
A daily Lent devotional from Presbyterian Outlook

“Why am I a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church?  Two words keep  floating up in a rather persistent way  –  “home” and  “family” – and I realized that it is an inescapable fact that is what this church means to me. During my 40 years here, so many life events have happened and Westminster has been there for me through all those times – good and bad.    It has been my home and family.  They say “home is where the heart is” and I’ve found the heart of Westminster to be as open and warm as a family’s!”