{"id":14155,"date":"2025-03-02T19:14:49","date_gmt":"2025-03-02T23:14:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14155"},"modified":"2025-08-15T23:24:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T03:24:15","slug":"laments-for-lent-he-remembers-that-we-are-dust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/?p=14155","title":{"rendered":"Laments for Lent – He Remembers that We Are Dust."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Psalm 103:8-18 (New International Version):<\/p>\n

The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
\nslow to anger, abounding in love.
\nHe will not always accuse,
\nnor will he harbor his anger forever;
\nhe does not treat us as our sins deserve
\nor repay us according to our iniquities.
\nFor as high as the heavens are above the earth,
\nso great is his love for those who fear him;
\nas far as the east is from the west,
\nso far has he removed our transgressions from us.<\/p>\n

As a father has compassion on his children,
\nso the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
\nfor he knows how we are formed,
\nhe remembers that we are dust.
\nThe life of mortals is like grass,
\nthey flourish like a flower of the field;
\nthe wind blows over it and it is gone,
\nand its place remembers it no more.
\nBut from everlasting to everlasting
\nthe Lord’s love is with those who fear him,
\nand his righteousness with their children’s children —
\nwith those who keep his covenant
\nand remember to obey his precepts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Okay, I’m cheating a little here. I’m beginning a series called Laments for Lent<\/a><\/em> (Here’s my Intro post<\/a>.) – and I’m beginning with Psalm 103, which is not a Lament, but a Psalm of Praise.<\/p>\n

But this is my post for Ash Wednesday. (Yes, I know it’s happening Wednesday and Lent hasn’t started yet – but on Wednesday I’ll be going straight from work to singing in the choir for an Ash Wednesday service, so I thought I’d go ahead and post today.) And on Ash Wednesday, we think about how we came from dust and will return to dust. We also examine ourselves and repent of our sins.<\/p>\n

And I want to encourage everyone: The Lord remembers that we are dust. We’re not surprising God with our failures and foibles. The Lord has compassion on us.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite writers is the Irish mystic Lorna Byrne<\/a>, and she says that in God’s eyes, we all are children. This matches what Psalm 103 teaches. When a toddler learning to walk stumbles, do good parents scold and berate them? No! God is a Father who has compassion on us, with love higher than the heavens.<\/p>\n

I’m also using this passage as an introduction to Psalms. For the rest of Lent, I’m going to be looking at Laments and Psalms of Confession, but first let me point out the parallelism in Psalms. Hebrew poetry, rather than rhyming, takes the form of parallelism – a wonderfully translatable form. And yes, there are nuances in the original language, but speaking generally, ideas are repeated and lines mirror each other. Look at the parallelism in these lines:<\/p>\n

He will not always accuse;
\nnor will he harbor his anger forever;
\nhe does not treat us as our sins deserve
\nor repay us according to our iniquities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the next verses, two lines are reflected at a time:<\/p>\n

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
\nso great is his love for those who fear him;
\nas far as the east is from the west,
\nso far has he removed our transgressions from us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Psalm 103 became my favorite 20 years ago after I found out my then-husband was seeing another woman behind my back. (I didn’t know then that it was actually an affair.) You’d think that would have filled him with shame, and it probably did. But his reaction was to tell me<\/em> all the ways I was a terrible wife and he was “forced” to look elsewhere for “friendship.” And that I did not deserve his love or affection.<\/p>\n

And the sad part of the story is that I bought it. Mind you, almost all his accusations were based in truth – he listed off things I’d done or said in anger over 18 years of marriage. Never mind if I hadn’t intended them as harsh as the way they’d come out. Never mind if I’d apologized. I was told that I was a terrible person and not even a good friend to my husband and didn’t deserve love.<\/p>\n

And I was used to believing my husband. I thought he loved me. I knew I was a lovable person because he loved me. And he hadn’t clued me in on how hurt he was by the things I’d done and said until it all came out after I found out about him seeing this “friend” behind my back.\u00a0 So I believed him that my terrible actions and words had destroyed my own marriage and hurt the one I loved most.<\/p>\n

But in my devastation, thank God I came across this passage.<\/p>\n

God<\/em> will not always accuse.
\nThe Lord<\/em> will not harbor his anger forever.<\/p>\n

I was told I didn’t deserve love. Well,
\nthe Lord<\/em> does not treat me as my sins deserve.<\/p>\n

And now, twenty years later, happily single – sometimes I see friends agonizing over their own shortcomings. It seems like they think God is like my ex-husband, parceling out love only if we deserve it.<\/p>\n

But no, God is like a good Father, having compassion on God’s children far greater than an earthly parent’s love.<\/p>\n

And the Lord remembers that we are dust. Our mistakes don’t surprise God the way they do us. They don’t make God lash out in anger. Instead, like a Father or like a Mother, the Lord shows us compassion and helps us do better.<\/p>\n

So those are my thoughts for Ash Wednesday and receiving the ashes.<\/p>\n

In the upcoming series, for the remaining six Sundays of Lent plus Easter, I’m going to look at each of the parts of a Lament. I’ve made an acronym to help remember them:<\/p>\n

A – Address to God
\nC – Complaint
\nC – Confession of Trust
\nE – Entreaty
\nS – Sureness of Help
\nS – Subsequent Praise<\/p>\n

I also – always – am about encouraging folks to write their own psalms. For this introductory week, think about trying a little parallelism in your prayers. Pray a request, and then think of another way to say it. If nothing else, it helps slow things down and makes your prayer more meditative.<\/p>\n

I’m going to close by writing a short sample lament. Wanting to keep it short, I will not go into as much detail as many of the Psalms do. I’m thinking of all my neighbors and friends who are federal employees facing chaos, so here’s a lament for them, including the seven parts.<\/p>\n

Lord, I come before you
\nas a child to a compassionate parent.
\nI know that you hear;
\nI believe that you listen.<\/p>\n

Lord, our government is in chaos;
\nnorms and rules are being ignored.
\nPeople are losing their jobs willy-nilly,
\nwith no notice
\nwith no severance
\nwith no chance to prepare.
\nLives are being upended
\nand people don’t know where to turn.
\nEven worse is all the good work
\nbeing disregarded and denigrated
\nas if hard work serving others
\nis all a grift to steal from the very people they serve.<\/p>\n

Father, we do trust you.
\nIf you see the sparrow fall,
\nthen you know about each life
\nfacing the difficulties of job loss
\nor the withdrawal of benefits
\ndepended on to get out of a hard space.<\/p>\n

Lord, we ask you to act!
\nWe ask you to work for justice!
\nHelp those who have been wrongfully terminated,
\nthose who have been abandoned,
\nthose wrongfully detained and deported,
\nand all others harmed by recent actions.<\/p>\n

Christ, there’s so much,
\nwe don’t even know how to respond.
\nSend your Spirit and show us
\nwhat we can do
\nto speed the cause of justice,
\nto help the oppressed,
\nto call the mighty to account,
\nto aid the destitute.<\/p>\n

Lord, the arc of the universe
\ndoes bend toward justice;
\nthe path of history
\ndoes show oppressors losing.<\/p>\n

We will rejoice with each victory,
\nbig or small.
\nAnd we will watch to see
\nall the ways you will bring triumph out of loss.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

May it be so, Lord. Thank you that though we came from dust, your compassion for us never fails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Psalm 103:8-18 (New International Version): The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,62,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-laments","category-laments-for-lent","category-praying-with-the-psalmists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14155"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14160,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14155\/revisions\/14160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/sonderjourneys\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}