Good Morning…
“The tucking in ceremony was so sad and so special,” my friend told me after a very significant family funeral. “What is a ‘tucking in’ ceremony?” I asked.
She described for me her experience. After their loved one was cremated, following the funeral, the family members took turns digging a hole on a holy plot of land and, as part of a short, sacred ceremony, together they tucked her ashes back into the ground, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust is a biblical concept with roots in Genesis 2:7 (NIV): Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being, Genesis 18:27 (AMP): Abraham answered, “Now behold, I who am but dust [in origin] and ashes have decided to speak to the Lord, and Ecclesiastes 12:7 (AMP): Then the dust [out of which God made man’s body] will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.
As I wake this Saturday morning, I think of all those deeply missing their loved ones who were carelessly killed in Las Vegas this week. I lift a prayer for all of the heartbroken grievers I will never meet on earth, as today many of them will “tuck in” the ashes of one-of-a-kind people long loved and abruptly lost.
…Sue…
