In This Edition
The Editor’s Desk
The Bottom Of The Hill - February sometimes feels like a slog, as we are technically in the middle of winter (in the USA, anyway) and feel so far from spring. In this letter from the editor, I remind you that there’s nowhere to go but up!
The Peasant Times-Dispatch
Simplify - In this Podcast, I talk about what it means to simplify and what we should aim for when we try it. In the comments, some of you pointed out that there’s complexity too, and that is important! But ultimately, if we get the simple things down as best as we can, the complex things become a little easier.
Open Thread: The Lord Provides - Christ Himself reminds us not to worry about our food or drink or clothing; “Your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things,” and that if we seek the Kingdom of God then “all these things shall be added unto you.” That really has a way of simplifying our worries, right?
Peasant Library
Have A Relationship With Scripture - An Essay about the benefits and importance of not just reading scripture, but having a relationship with scripture.
Idolatry - I had a hard time understanding Idolatry until I read the Letter of Jeremiah. In this essay I elaborate on my new understanding and suggest what we may hold up as modern idols.
Gibberish
My Substack where I write fiction is live and thriving! I’ve been having a lot of fun posting writing exercises every week on
, check it out for something a little different!
Dust On The Way Back To Dust
Today is Ash Wednesday. Catholics and Christians the world over will be going to receive ashes either sprinkled on their heads or crossed on their foreheads. The refrain we hear on this day is “I am dust, and to dust I shall return.” It is intended to call to mind our beginning—Adam, formed of clay—and to our earthly end, returned to the Earth. In Latin this somewhat morbid contemplation is known as memento mori: “remember you will die”.
We’ve been talking this month about simplicity, so memento mori might seem a little out of place. Life is full of complexity, and memento mori is not even that simple either. Death is a complicated and scary thing, and the death of loved ones causes untold grief; our own death is a scary thing to contemplate.
It is not so much that we are called to contemplate death, I would say, but the end. Our lives have a beginning and an end, and the end is death in this world but death is a gateway to everlasting life. So death is not really THE end as much as AN end, an end of our material world until the glorification and resurrection of the cosmos. Endings have a way of clarifying in our mind our thoughts and priorities.
There is a cliché that goes, “live every day as if it were your last.” I don’t like that cliché. People start thinking about tying up loose ends, living adventurously, doing things that they may never get a chance to do again. That saying is used to justify fun, adventure, enjoyment—the spice of life, if you will. But something is missing—a sense of priorities.
I prefer a twist on the phrase: “live every day as if it were your only day.” Imagine you have been deployed by God to this Earth for 24 hours. What do you do? What are your concerns? You can see how it is slightly different from living as if today were your last day. Today is your only day: We must be industrious, devoted, loving, giving people in the 24 hours we have been given. We must not lose our love of God or our love of God as we encounter Him through our neighbors. We must not live for ourselves, but live for others, live for God, so that when we are called back to God we don’t have to say, “I rode a roller coaster and jumped out of an airplane and ordered a second dessert.” Instead, we can say, “I loved You, I served You, and I came to know You. I leave the Earth slightly better than I found it for the work that I did in the day You gave me.”
Doesn’t that simplify things?
Ash Wednesday is where we remember that we have been deployed to this Earth not for 24 hours, but for one singular lifetime. It could be taken away from us at any moment—we don’t know when God will call us home. We don’t know when Christ will return in Glory either. But if we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return then it clears the mind of any pretensions that we are something other than dust. We are dust in some intermediate state, in the process of being returned to it’s basic dust-form.
We also remember on Ash Wednesday what God did with His singular life here on Earth. He did not teach theology, he taught faith. He did not party hard or YOLO his way to the wedding at Cana. Christ submit to the limitations of humanity, and to our human authorities; He served us, and He didn’t ask us—but commanded us—to follow Him.
This Lent, let us remember that every day we wake up is a gift from God, let us remember that we have been deployed to Earth to do as much as we can to know, love, and serve God with every moment of our fleeting life. Let us remember the simple truth that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.
Discourses: Catechesis
The second lesson in my new Catechesis series is live! Check out this article to see what the Nicene Creed can tell us about the Trinity.
Thank You
Thank you for reading. I wish you all a blessed Ash Wednesday and a fruitful lent.
Thank you, and God bless you all!
Ad Jesum Per Mariam