ASH WEDNESDAY REFLECTION
I squat in silence on a cement slab over a dutch oven filled with blades of last year's Palm Sunday fronds. I light them, stir, relight and stir again, repeating the process until they have all been reduced to ash. Ashes for tonight's ash Wednesday service. The smoke permeates my clothes and my hair. Do I smell like repentance? I'm tempted to not wash my hair so that I may carry the smell of the smoke with me into tonight's service.
I have participated in a practice that is well over a thousand years old. In these days of such rapid change, it seems almost ancient, primitive. As I am warmed for a short time next to the small fire, I feel that I should not be doing this alone. It should be something done in community, together in silence, watching the short bursts of flame and the pinpoints of dying embers among the ashes. It would be like another kind of communion, a connection with God through flame and ash. A kind of burnt sin offering?
Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent don't hold the attraction for us like Easter. We're coming out of the darkness of winter with its long shadows by three in the afternoon, and we're yearning for spring with longer days and warmer weather. Spring and Easter -- that's what we would prefer to skip right to rather than focus on a season of self-reflection and sacrifice.
I'm like any other human being. I'm not overly fond of examining my life and naming my short comings and growing edges and (dare I call it for what it is) my sin. Yet without confession of my sins and the grieving over them (contrition), I would never acknowledge my need for forgiveness and for God's grace. To deny my imperfection and self-center, unloving actions, is to deny my need for the ongoing work of God's love and transforming grace in my life.
To me, it seems like nibbling at the crumbs of the Bread of Life and only wetting one's lips on the rim of Cup of Salvation.
If we don't experience the love and forgiveness of God, how can we love and forgiven others? How can we fully experience Easter in a genuine and real way?
I have participated in a practice that is well over a thousand years old. In these days of such rapid change, it seems almost ancient, primitive. As I am warmed for a short time next to the small fire, I feel that I should not be doing this alone. It should be something done in community, together in silence, watching the short bursts of flame and the pinpoints of dying embers among the ashes. It would be like another kind of communion, a connection with God through flame and ash. A kind of burnt sin offering?
Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent don't hold the attraction for us like Easter. We're coming out of the darkness of winter with its long shadows by three in the afternoon, and we're yearning for spring with longer days and warmer weather. Spring and Easter -- that's what we would prefer to skip right to rather than focus on a season of self-reflection and sacrifice.
I'm like any other human being. I'm not overly fond of examining my life and naming my short comings and growing edges and (dare I call it for what it is) my sin. Yet without confession of my sins and the grieving over them (contrition), I would never acknowledge my need for forgiveness and for God's grace. To deny my imperfection and self-center, unloving actions, is to deny my need for the ongoing work of God's love and transforming grace in my life.
To me, it seems like nibbling at the crumbs of the Bread of Life and only wetting one's lips on the rim of Cup of Salvation.
If we don't experience the love and forgiveness of God, how can we love and forgiven others? How can we fully experience Easter in a genuine and real way?
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