Ash Wednesday hits different in a hospital. “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return” seems painfully obvious in a place where so many people die. I half imagined a doctor or a nurse responding, “Yeah, I’m well aware.” This is a place where it would be hard to forget that we are dust.

I found myself wondering how different this remembrance would be in a church if the imposition of ashes was done not by pastors in robes and suits, but nurses in scrubs, doctors in lab coats, or children in hospital gowns. Would that be too over the top? At the very least it would be more difficult to shake the reality of our finitude and fragility.

For some of us, the fragility of life is not that far from our minds. Every news cycle can seem like another chaos monster careening out of control. And I realize not everyone feels that way. It’s getting a bit harder for me to understand why, but it is the reality whether I know why or not. Yet in the midst of this chaos, I take some solace in the fact that we are all dust.

Twenty-seven degrees is cold. There has never been a moment when I saw that the temperature was in the 20s and thought, “Oh boy, let’s go outside!” Yet it is funny how a few days of temperatures in the early adolescence can make 27º feel almost pleasant. It was that cold this morning as I walked into work and I found myself thinking, “This isn’t too bad.” It is fascinating how quickly our bodies can adapt to what at one time was the abnormal. I think that our spirits do the same.

This season is a weird one for me. This is the eighth Sunday of the year and I believe that I have been to church once; back in early January. It is almost certainly the least that I have been to church since I was a fetus. And since my mom was in church regularly during that time then it might as well be the least that I have been to church ever.

The irony is that this absence is due to my presence at the hospital providing spiritual care. On Sundays, I hold a pager, check the network for consults, make rounds, and sit with folks navigating peaks, valleys, and everything in between. Sometimes, these encounters are just chitchat. Many times, it is a sacred experience. Even when God is not mentioned, the divine has this way of showing up in the room. What I experience on Sundays is not exactly church, but it’s not not church either. I’ll often experience community, a passing of the peace, an exchange of wisdom, and sometimes prayer.

So…it’s been a bit of a week. There was yet another school shooting in our area, which has torn open wounds for people who have experienced these tragedies before and scared anew children in schools including my own. On the national front, it seems that calling on people to protect the frightened and vulnerable is seen by many as a radical leftist agenda rather than, as I have understood it, basic human decency.

Of course, there have been other things good, bad, and in between. Everything is not lost but, Good Lord, the dark clouds loom ominously and I feel tired. You might feel tired too.

I would like to give you some sort of rousing speech about things being darkest before the dawn, but we don’t really know how long the arcs of history bend. I’m reminded of my favorite Frederick Buechner quote, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” I actually quoted that to one of my sons this week talking about the shooting in Antioch. But, you know, it’s okay if you feel a little scared. You are a person after all (I said this to my son also).

So we’ll go from Buechner to the mid 2000s arena rock banger “All These Things That I’ve Done.” Not the lyric “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier” though there is something in there too. But simply this: “If you can, hold on.” Throughout scripture, people are encouraged to not grow weary in doing what is right (Galatians 6:9-10 pops into my mind immediately) even though said weariness is warranted.

The first reading for the Third Sunday of Advent is Zephaniah 3:14-20 and this is a short story about why part of that verse always stops me in my tracks.

Taylor Swift once famously sang that when you’re fifteen and someone tells you they love you then you’re going to believe it. When I was fifteen, I was gangly, unsure of myself, and generally did not think that I mattered that much. I do not know how the conversation started that led to Zephaniah started, but I do know where it ended. One of the staff members at the camp my family ran (also that summer, a professional theater troupe; long story, different story) named Lauren encouraged me by reading this verse:

The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will renew you in His love;
He will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival.
—Zephaniah 3:17-18a

Nearly thirty years later, I distinctly remember hearing this verse for the first time. And it was probably the perfect time for me to hear it. A few years later, I probably would have waved it off because Christians way too often decontextualize passages meant for the people of Israel and make it about us feeling good. I wasn’t there yet, so Zephaniah stuck with me. I guess when you’re fifteen and someone tells you God loves you, you’re going to believe it. So, thank you for that, Lauren. Context or not, that verse always reminds me that God loves me.

Peace is the movement of Advent that often sounds the most hollow. Hope is an anticipation. Joy and Love are traces of which we receive many glimpses. I guess it is true that we might receive glimpses of peace as well. Yet I sometimes wonder if those glimpses are just respites born of privilege; a peace that comes from being fortunate to be born into a life not knowing hunger, war, or prejudice.

No justice! No peace! This was one of the cries in the Summer of 2020. Covid had locked all of us down which left us without distractions when the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others came across our newsfeeds. Tens of thousands donned masks and carried signs of protest. From bullhorns we heard it declared that none of us were free unless all of us were free. No justice, no peace. Summer 2020. Winter 1955. Advent 2024. Winter, spring, summer, and fall ad infinitum.

Peace is often the desire of a person who is sitting in a hospital room with their dying loved one. Typically they desire peace for the beloved with tubes connecting them to machines. They do not usually ask for peace for themselves. Folks will ask prayers for all kinds of miracles, but it seems that most know that being at peace with the loss of a loved one is a bridge too far. I am not even sure that most people would take that peace even if they could. It is true that time heals many things and the years may ease the sting of loss, yet there is no complete end to grief. Complete peace is just out of reach. Though the beautiful flipside of this reality is that no end to grief means that there is no end to love.

One of the funny things about being a chaplain resident is that my life is very much intertwined with a piece of 1990s technology. If a member of a medical team wants to contact a chaplain about a patient—especially if it is an immediate concern—they page us. I will hear a chirpy beep, check the number, and call back to see how my assistance is needed.

My initial reaction to that pager was fear. Actually, my initial reaction was amusement. Then as I started my first shift on call, I was anxious. I did not know what was going to be on the other side of that chirpy beep. I just knew that it was not going to be easy and that was scary.

In a weird way, I have come to appreciate the pager because I am required to answer it. It’s my job. I cannot run and hide from it. If a chaplain is needed and I am on call then I have to dial that number. I have to show up in that hospital room to try to listen to the emotions and needs of that patient or family member whether I am ready or not, whether my last visit was deeply meaningful or horribly awkward. You get the page and you show up.