Ash Wednesday and Lent bring us again and again to a subject most of us want to avoid:  our mortality.  But the invitation to a holy Lent should fill us with hope and optimism:  we can change, we can have richer relationship with God and with each other, we can lay down burdens and regrets.  We are dust, but dust that is beloved, blessed, and animated by the Holy One, invited to draw closer and to change our ways.