Day 2: A Few Thoughts on Ash Wednesday

This week has been one chock full of holidays and important events. Fat Tuesday. State of the Union. Ash Wednesday. UNC-vs.-Dook Day (yes, that counts). Valentine’s Day. Presidents’ Day. I’ve found it funny because these holidays are colored by such different outlooks on life, such different ways of living and being in the world (though not completely disconnected from one another). The sobering transition between Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday is, of course, yearly and intentional. The others aren’t always juxtaposed quite so. For example, last night, I really did struggle to return home from an Ash Wednesday service and from a day of talking to my students about penitence and solemnity, to suddenly shift gears into a smack-talking, screaming-at-the-TV, my-happiness-depends-on-the-outcome-of-this-game persona. It grated on me to let that Dook-hatred, all in good fun as it may be, to seep into the contrite and repentant spirit with which I had only so recently adorned myself.

And, after a great first half, UNC-Dook day proved as disappointing as Valentine’s Day will be this year (hey, I’m not ashamed to admit that I rather enjoy the attention of flowers and a well-planned dinner date, and I’ll miss it this year). Add to this mix the Lenten contemplation of one’s mortality, and it’s turning out to be a real downer of a week.

I’m kidding, of course. I actually find Ash Wednesday to be strangely uplifting. Yes, it is a reminder that we will all die one day—that are lives are but flowers that will flourish and then wither—but it is, at the same time, a reminder that we’ve indeed been given one precious life. Since there is an end to contemplate, how much more so should we be motivated to live in a way that is rich with compassion and relationship and kingdom-building? And, not to sound like one of those people (my past Lenten selves included) who uses Lent as a 40 day excuse for a diet—but this time of Lent does offer an intentional period in which we can practice living as better versions of ourselves. Healthier, kinder, humbler people. We can embrace patterns of behaviors and ways of living that are more just and life-giving to ourselves and to those around us. And, most importantly, we are afforded the opportunity to crawl through the dust and dross of our own making and to draw closer to the heart of God through repentance, prayer, fasting, study, and contemplation. The embrace of this kind of spiritual rejuvenation is, of course, an invitation that God continually extends to each us. But there is something about coming to it as a Christian community, about together marking a day of returning to the Lord, about sealing it with a smear of ash on one’s forehead, that compels us to live differently and to know God more fervently. I am thankful for the communities in which I found myself yesterday and for those fellow “children of dust” that gathered together before God our Maker.