Ashes to Ashes: A Ritual

Yesterday Bruce and I did not want to get up for a morning service so we decided to go to the Brooklyn UU church and take part in their new "Sunset Services." This is something new they are trying out and it is aimed at young people. So Bruce and I found that we were the oldest people in attendance.

The ritual reminded me of some of our reflections groups at BSEC when Kurt Johnson used to lead them. I remember one in particular where we were supposed to choose an object that had some symbolic meaning to us and lay it on a sort of altar while meditating. This seems to bring a focus to one's inner thoughts.

In last night's ritual we thought about the body, ashes, earth, decomposition, and without mentioning it too explicitly, death. We sang several hymns, one of which I remember. It went, "Brother, Sister, take your time, go slowly...simple things are holy." There was a bit more but this is what stood out in my mind. At the same time we watched a slide show of sonograms showing the fetus, hands, beach sand, etc. After singing hymns and doing readings (after each sentence the person reading the words came up and burned them in the chalice), we did "holy play" which consisted of touching, manipulating and playing with clay, sand and dirt. I liked the sand best and felt that I found a piece of bone in it that seemed like a treasure. Some of the young women took off their shoes and socks and walked and danced in the dirt pile, so they really got deeply involved in it.

We passed around the bowl of burnt words and each of us took some of the ashes. Some of this was tied in with the Christian ritual of Ash Wednesday but the woman running the worship said that often they simply put the ashes on your forehead for that ritual and you do not get to touch them. The ashes were stark black and soft and crumbly. I rubbed them between my fingers and they crumbled more and more and left a stain on my hand. They were very fragile, fragile as life.

Afterwards we went to a bowl of soapy water and washed up. Someone made a joke about footwashing and another person said that would be a whole other ritual. Actually I think I would enjoy that. It would be an experience I have not had. This was meaningful and yet part of it was just like being a kid playing in the sandbox again.

When it ended we just went home. I seem to be shy around much younger people. I don't know why that is. But it was a nice mellow experience. We were in a small chapel downstairs in the church, and a concert with Gregorian chanting was going on upstairs. The stained glass windows were very Christian but the ritual was earth-centered, and almost pagan.

I find I like more traditional services but once in a while something like this can be food for thought. Maybe food for the soul as well. It is certainly more nourishing than a place where we have to constantly struggle. That's for the workaday world, and should not be for the church or other spiritual experiences.

I also felt that it was easier for the younger people to do an exercise with the overtones of bodily limitations and death, because it seems far away to them, as if it will never happen. Whereas for us fifty-somethings, having already been brought face to face with mortality, it was harder to enter into a ritual like this in a playful mode, for I felt the reminder as I dug my hands through the decomposed plants and animals contained in the dirt. The song, "All we are is dust in the wind," seemed most appropriate.

In all, it was well worth going there and a little step back from everyday life that I think we both needed. We will keep on exploring there.