Remember That You are Dust....(and other rememberings of Ash Wednesdays)

Ash Wednesday.

The older I get, the more time I spend remembering.

It was Ash Wednesday when I had lunch at the local club with my Episcopal Bishop.  We both enjoyed our ham and bean soup.  We forgot what day it was and decided that we wouldn't tell anyone.
Later that day I took ashes to the streets and distributed them at the local chocolate shop.

It was Ash Wednesday a few years back when I found myself in the high desert area of Mexico, outside of San Miguel de Allende at a writers symposium,
At 4 in the morning...in a monastery receiving ashes on my forehead.

Yesterday I found myself at a local church with my son, nephew, and niece.  Where an old ( and I think bitter) priest spent more energy telling people how to stand. He also commanded us not to respond with any words following being marked with ashes.
So I walked up, and a lay person marked my forehead (with what I later realized looked more like a giant question mark) and I responded loudly AMEN.

So, another Ash Wednesday.

I remember my first Ash Wednesday when I left the priesthood.
I didn't go.
I wasn't welcome.
Funny....I didn't feel welcomed yesterday either.

Nonetheless it is time to hunker down and open one's soul to the grace of prayer and penitence.  It's time to clean house.  It's time to get rid of sin.
And to pray for those who persecute us and hurt us and gossip about us and steal from us (the list goes on...)

So we venture forth, marked with the sensual reality of the end of our bodily existence.
That this world is fleeting and passing should not be news.
What is the news?
Well, to borrow from that old, deceased Episcopal Bishop who I had ham and bean soup----
"In the end, Jesus always wins."
And that is the Good News!




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