Flowers
Never Bend: An Ash Wednesday Homily
Through the corridors of sleep
Past shadows dark and deep
my mind dances and leaps in confusion
I don't know what is real
I can't touch what I feel
and I hide behind the shield of my illusion
So I'll continue to continue to
pretend
my life will never end
and flowers never bend with the rainfall
The mirror on my wall
Casts an image dark and small
But I'm not sure at all it's my reflection
I'm blinded by the light
Of God, and truth, and right
And I wander in the night without direction
So I'll continue to continue to
pretend
my life will never end
and flowers never bend with the rainfall
No matter if you're born
to play the king or pawn
for the line is thinly drawn 'tween joy and sorrow
so my fantasy becomes reality
and I must be what I must be and face tomorrow
So I'll continue to continue to
pretend
my life will never end
and flowers never bend with the rainfall
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Paul Simon
Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall lyrics © Paul Simon Music
Pretense be gone!
Lent is the season in which we face our ashen existence. It is an existential 40 day moment to get real. We are dust and to dust we shall return – that is the hard hitting reality we are so often blind to and pretend our life will never end.
“We are blinded by the light of God, truth, and right!”
Yes, Simon gets it: his lyrics point out that our icons, our images of God, truth, and right diminish in our ashes. When God is but a god of our own making in our own image we remain blind.
When truth becomes alternative truth – a made up reality we continue to pretend that flowers never bend ‘neath the rainfall.
When being right enslaves us from seeing the truth of our wrongs we wander in the night without direction.
“So I’ll continue to continue to pretend my life will never end and flowers never bend ‘neath the rainfall.”
It is Ash Wednesday and truth is told: flowers do bend ‘neath the rainfall.
We are mortal and death will have its way.
The ashen crosses placed on our foreheads this day are a sign that goes beyond all pretenses to the truth: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."
But for the self-revealed God in Jesus the Christ we will continue to pretend. The Divine died – yes – God died and like a Phoenix arose from the ashes. There is no denying death in Christ. Christ embraced death entered the ashes.
The Cosmic Christ of all creation reveals to us that each atom, every molecule holds the Divine and that ‘unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.’
Pretense be gone.
We are dust – stardust and to stardust we will return and in the mystery of the Divine be made new.
Amen
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