Dust to Dust and the Importance of the Letter H

Dust to Dust; Ashes to Ashes.

This is a common phrase recited on Ash Wednesday and during the liturgical season of Lent.

It’s a common phrase I refuse to recite. Yes, I cannot say it.

The reason? Well, every time I have recited it, especially in public, I for some reason forget to say those “H’s” and end up saying, Dust to Dust, Asses to Asses.

Once it happened at a funeral. And, there’s no possible way to recover from that. Except that I probably should have just jumped into the grave and buried myself.

But, another common phrase is “From dust you have come, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Good News.” This phrase is often recited on Ash Wednesday during the imposition of ashes, which is fancy seminary and church word for ‘smearing ash on your forehead.’ No joke…as I just typed that I literally just typed ‘smearing ass.’ See, those H’s are hard. This is so sacrilegious, I can’t even handle myself.

Last week, I had the opportunity to smear ashes on dozens of students’ foreheads as we did our annual “Ashes on the Go” around our campus. Setting up stations across the campus, we gave students to get ashes and remind them of their mortality. Over and over I said this phrase:

“From dust you have come, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Good News.”
“From dust you have come, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Good News.”
“From dust you have come, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Good News.”

And, the more I recited it, the more I realized the depth of that phrase. In between smears, I started to brainstorm the depth and richness of this phrase and very quickly a bunch of other phrases started to pop into my mind. I’ve made a brief list below.

I encourage you to read through them, let them become your prayer and mantra this Lent, and allow yourself the space to become aware that you are dust, but you are the Divine’s dust.

From dust you have come, to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the Good News.

You are dust, but the Divine invests everything in dust.

You are the Divine’s, which makes you so much more than mere dust.

You are dust, but God is breathing life into you.

Change your mind, open your mind, transform your ways, believe the Good news.

Take heart, even in seasons of doubt, the Good News is still good.

You may be dust, yet dust is never alone.

A Digital Declutter: Lenten Log Off

As I have blogged previously (and elsewhere) I am starting to question whether social media is good for us and if social media and technology adds value to my life, at least enough value to keep it. So, during the 40 days of Lent, I decided to do a “Digital Declutter” based off of the challenge Cal Newport gives in his book.

I deleted all optional technology from my phone, which included all social media, news, email, shopping, etc. For me, this included the following apps on my phone: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, New York Times, News, Gmail, Marco Polo, Amazon, YouTube, Yelp, Trulia, and a handful of others that I rarely used. I also set up blockers on my browser to include all new, social media, and any other “infotainment” sites.

With Lent’s conclusion, I thought I’d share some reactions from my 40-day social media declutter experiment.

Within the first few days, I found myself trying to go to particular sites or constantly refreshing my email. I’d open my phone only to find the app gone and on my laptop, the website blocker would show me a fun reminder. See the pictures to the side.

After a few days, I noticed the amount of time I use my phone drastically dropped from two or three hours a day to, on average, an hour. Some days I have used it as little as eight minutes. I even got to the point where I decided to leave my phone at home while my family went out to run errands.

Not checking any news sites has meant I’m a bit out of the loop and I have come to embrace that. Luckily, family members and friends have informed me of big events happening in the world. The biggest events have been the burning of Notre-Dame, the release of the Mueller report, the election of Chicago’s new mayor, and the college admissions scandal. All of this I learned from friends or coworkers, but each time had to ask them to give me more details.

Without the news and Twitter, I have become less irritated at Trump and less frustrated at politics. It’s been vastly refreshing. Without email on my phone, I don’t feel the need to always respond and be ‘on the clock.’ When I’m home, I’m home and not seeing if any new emails come in. I’ve also tried to only check email a couple of times a day while at work and I will share more about that in future posts.

And, when I come up with a funny tweet or a sentence that I think would get a lot of likes on Facebook, I just tell someone instead. Or laugh to myself about it. In all honesty, I feel as if there is less noise in my world. And, I don’t fear I’m missing out on anything. I think my so-called missing out is actually enabling me to be fully present and aware to people around me, especially my wife and sons.

It’s as if social media has become an obligation that takes up more of our time and mental energy than we realize. And, it seems as if we never really thought through the ramifications of saying “yes” to initially signing up.

I want to use technology rather than have technology use me.

I want to be face-to-face with people rather than face-to-phone around people.

I want to be aware rather than addicted to impersonal technology.

I want to be mindful rather than mindless scrolling.

In a future post, I’ll share a bit more about how it felt to log back onto social media and the decisions I’ve made about ending my relationship with social media.