[Message from our Executive Director, Daniel Wasserman-Soler]
Dear friends,
At the Ash Wednesday liturgy, the priest says, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These special words remind me of a fundamental tension in humankind, described by Bishop Erik Varden in the reflection below:
A human being is dust called to glory. To remain within that tension is a challenge. It takes time and strength of purpose to be reconciled to it. To accept that my nature is defined by a sense of incompletion so vast that it cannot be repaired within the order of creation — not by any possession, any accomplishment, any relationship — is to embrace radical poverty. I know that the fulfillment of my being can only come from outside myself, as a gift.
Every human being lives in this tension: we are made from dust, yet we also are “called to glory.” Elsewhere, Bishop Varden adds that we “crave a completion that no created being can give.” This Lent, I pray that we grow in our desire for the completion that only God can offer to us.
Yours in Christ,
Daniel Wasserman-Soler
Executive Director
Lumen Christi Institute
P. S. If you would like to read more of Bishop Varden’s work, the text above comes from his Shattering of Loneliness.