BEN : I died again. . . .

I died again yesterday.
      It’s interesting that you mentioned such an event as an anniversary. I had never thought about it like that. When I think of the marking of an anniversary, I think of weddings and birthdays. I suppose as I get older this will change as more of the people who I have lived and loved and laughed will pass from this world to the next.
      Yesterday was rightfully deemed my anniversary. It marked three years since I dreamed about the doors the Cathedral just down the street and felt a strange need to visit this place I had only passed on foot or by car in the midst of what surely was important business.
      When the bells rang that day, I didn’t have a choice. I stopped what I was doing, and I started walking. The thought never occurred to me that I didn’t know where I was going or what I was doing. I had never been a part of an Ash Wednesday service before, but the anxiety that typically surrounds such an event has been purged from my memory if it was ever part of the experience in the first place.
      Yesterday I sat in a different spot, listened to a different sermon, consumed different wine and was marked with different ashes. Yet somehow I felt as if all that was old had become new and all that was new had grown old. It’s strange to find yourself at the intersection of time and eternity, an intersection that surely has been the location of every Christian who has ever willingly paused to mark the historic journey to death preserved for us in the season of Lent as the words “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” is spoken into our lives once again.
      It is good to be reminded of death. There was a period of time in my development as a man when I believed I was invincible. One might argue that little has changed given my incessant need to occupy myself with important matters of this world that will surely crumble under the weight of eternity.
      I used to give people directions around town using the Cathedral as a landmark. I remember being impressed with its old world design and imposing presence on the corner of 9th and Broad. Now I know it is a holy place where ordinary people come to die.
      For a brief period of time – forty days to be exact – I will make my journey through the wilderness of my own sin to face my own demons so that I might participate in the triumphal entry and then the passion only to end up at the resurrection where I will find myself at another holy intersection and marking another anniversary.
      The good news is that I didn’t die alone.